to meet his Judge: can you have peace in your breast after this? Will not you henceforward be for ever weighing in your mind the loss of his life, the misery of his relatives, the fate of his immortal soul, with the affront he has unguardedly offered you? Probably you 'flatter yourself with the hopes of avoiding the guilt and misery here described, by keeping yourself out of the danger of being called upon to fight a duel. But remember, that as to the guilt in question, you are habitually living in it before the Searcher of Hearts, and that you will hereafter be judged by him according to it, while you are living in a disposition of mind to fight a duel in any circum

stances whatsoever.

Many persons, or rather most persons, admit to a certain degree the sinfulness as well as the absurdity of duelling. They lament that such a practice should prevail; but alledge that it is better for a man of spirit to submit to it, than to pass for a coward. This is, in fact, to say, that it is better to be a coward, than to pass for one. Thus the poor mistaken Lucretia submitted to contract the guilt of adultery, when she found that otherwise her memory would be stained with he infamy of it; whilst the truly virtuous Susannah*, in the same circumstances, preferred the infamy of the crime to the crime itself. In fact, I maintain that the man who cannot brave the erroneous opinion of the world, as well as every

* See Daniel c. xiii. in the Vulgate.

other calamity in the discharge of his duty, is thus far a coward; and, indeed, his own heart tells him that he is so. The true hero is disposed to part with his reputation, as well as his life, rather than perpetrate a base or bad action *. It was a blind superstitious notion, repeatedly censured by the Catholic Church, and generally belied by the issue of the greater part of duels, namely, that "God is obliged to interpose for "the protection of the injured party," which first gave rise to this barbarous practice. The heroes of Greece and Rome, and the renowned chieftains of Christendom, in early times, could settle such disputes without murdering one another, and they did not think that even a blow was that atrocious injury which nothing but blood could expiate t.

But it is the legislature alone which can put an effectual stop to this destructive malady.O! for an intelligent and active member of either House of Parliament, who is ambitious of glory by saving the lives of his fellow citizens, or who is touched with compassion for the still re

When the great Athenian general, Themistocles, was struck at the council board by Eurybiades, a brother officer, he coolly answered: παταξον μεν ακουσον δε

curring distress of parents, wives, and children; or who is inflamed with true zeal to prevent the accumulation of moral guilt! Such a one would certainly accomplish the great work wanted, though Mr. Wilberforce once abandoned it in despair *. But have we not laws already, it will be said, and those sufficiently severe, against the practice of duelling? Would you add any thing to the rigour of capital punishment, which already is in force against it?-I answer, the laws in this case are sèvere enough, and too severe, which is the very cause why they are ineffectual. Whilst the laws make no distinction between a successful duellist and a common murderer, (the prejudice of the people, which attaches a kind of honour to duelling, remaining such as it is) they never will answer any other purpose than to involve unfortunate juries in the guilt of perjury, and cause the blood of the wretched victims of fashion to flow on from one generation to another, To lay a proper restraint upon duellists, let them be attacked in their honour and perty: let all funeral honours whatsoever, and even the claim of being interred in a common burying-ground, be interdicted with respect to the body of the person who falls in a duel; and let the surviving duellist be declared incapable of serving his country in the lowest rank whatever.

pro

* Mr. Wilberforce gave notice of a new bill against duelling, which he intended to introduce into parliament in consequence of the duel between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Tierney.

H

Let one half also of his property or income, as rated by a jury, be forfeited, or at least sequestrated for his life. With these prescriptions, I would venture to affirm we should not hear of a duel within these dominions in the course of five years. Such laws would be acted upon by a jury, should the occasion require it, and they would be productive of their intended effect. For do not we find that the mere binding over of parties under a pecuniary penalty prevents duels? In a word, humiliation and degradation are the proper remedy for a vice which originates in pride and vanity.

I am, &c.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER VIII.

Tullow, July 10, 1807.

HOWEVER agreeable my resi

dence in and about the capital had been to me for some days past, yet I grew impatient to see

It

and become acquainted with the interior parts of the island. I accordingly set off from Dublin yesterday morning, and after viewing some ruined churches, castles, and round towers, &c. on the road, I stopped to breakfast at Naas, in the county of Kildare, about 15 Irish miles in a south-west direction from the metropolis. was there I first observed those wide-extended ruins of houses and cabins, which disfigure so many other towns as well as Naas, owing to the blind fury of the yeomen and king's officers during the rebellion of 1798, who destroyed every habitation in which they found arms, or suspected that arms might be concealed, or whose masters were absent from home. A bar barous and fatal policy, by which a great many repentant rebels were forced to support the cause in which they had hastily engaged; and many other innocent men were driven to join the rebellion, as their only resource in the circumstances to which they were then reduced. Most of the chapels in that neighbourhood, and throughout the county of Wexford, to the amount of near fifty, were wantonly demolished by the military on the same occasion. These have since been rebuilt at the expense of government; but the ruins of the dwelling-houses, which frequently extend from one end of a long street to another, and cover whole quarters of a town*, still re

An English Gentleman of the highest honour, who was in Ireland during the rebellion, mentions his having heard officers boast