ution of its good things, by means of which thieves may become
reconciled to the age, and the age to them. The probability, however,
seems to be, that the charmers will charm in vain, charm they ever so
wisely.

[Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN DU GUESCLIN AND TROUSSEL.]

DUELS AND ORDEALS.

There was an ancient sage philosopher,
Who swore the world, as he could prove,
Was mad of fighting.--_Hudibras_.

Most writers, in accounting for the origin of duelling, derive it from the
warlike habits of those barbarous nations who overran Europe in the early
centuries of the Christian era, and who knew no mode so effectual for
settling their differences as the point of the sword. In fact, duelling,
taken in its primitive and broadest sense, means nothing more than
combating, and is the universal resort of all wild animals, including man,
to gain or defend their possessions, or avenge their insults. Two dogs who
tear each other for a bone, or two bantams fighting on a dunghill for the
love of some beautiful hen, or two fools on Wimbledon Common, shooting at
each other to satisfy the laws of offended honour, stand on the same
footing in this respect, and are each and all mere duellists. As
civilisation advanced, the best-informed men naturally grew ashamed of
such a mode of adjusting disputes, and the promulgation of some sort of
laws for obtaining redress for injuries was the consequence. Still there
were many cases in which the allegations of an accuser could not be
rebutted by any positive proof on the part of the accused; and in all
these, which must have been exceedingly numerous in the early stages of
European society, the combat was resorted to. From its decision there was
no appeal. God was supposed to nerve the arm of the combatant whose cause
was just, and to grant him the victory over his opponent. As Montesquieu
well remarks,[51] this belief was not unnatural among a people just
emerging from barbarism. Their manners being wholly warlike, the man
deficient in courage, the prime virtue of his fellows, was not
unreasonably suspected of other vices besides cowardice, which is
generally found to be co-existent with treachery. He, therefore, who
shewed himself most valiant in the encounter was absolved by public
opinion from any crime with which he might be charged. As a necessary
consequence, society would have been reduced to its original elements, if
the men of thought, as distinguished from the men