e of the Duke Hamilton's death--a paltry quarrel that
might easily have been made up, and with a ruffian so low, base,
profligate, and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders, that a
man of such a renown and princely rank as my lord duke might have
disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain. But his
spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage
was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the
hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him. The
queen's ambassador to Paris died, the loyal and devoted servant of the
House of Stuart, and a royal prince of Scotland himself, and carrying the
confidence, the repentance of Queen Anne along with his own open devotion,
and the goodwill of millions in the country more, to the queen's exiled
brother and sovereign.

That party to which Lord Mohun belonged had the benefit of his service,
and now were well rid of such a ruffian. He, and Meredith, and Macartney,
were the Duke of Marlborough's men; and the two colonels had been broke
but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories. His grace was a
Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince Eugene himself.
I say not that he was privy to Duke Hamilton's death, I say that his party
profited by it; and that three desperate and bloody instruments were found
to effect that murder.

As Esmond and the dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this
tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart;
the street-criers were already out with their broadsides, shouting through
the town the full, true, and horrible account of the death of Lord Mohun
and Duke Hamilton in a duel. A fellow had got to Kensington, and was
crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr. Esmond
happened to pass by. He drove the man from under Beatrix's very window,
whereof the casement had been set open. The sun was shining though 'twas
November: he had seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard
relieved at the Palace, the labourers trudging to their work in the
gardens between Kensington and the City--the wandering merchants and
hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going to its
business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them; and
kings, very likely, lost their chances. So night and day pass away, and
to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of th