he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.--
Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward."

[946] See Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. vi. p. 167.

We may also compare what Arcite says to Palamon in the "Two Noble
Kinsmen" (iii. 6):

"If I fall, curse me, and say I was a coward;
For none but such dare die in these just trials."

Among the customs connected with duelling, it appears that, according to
an old law, knights were to fight with the lance and the sword, as those
of inferior rank fought with an ebon staff or baton, to the farther end
of which was fixed a bag crammed hard with sand.[947] Thus Shakespeare,
in "2 Henry VI." (ii. 3), represents Horner entering "bearing his staff
with a sand-bag fastened to it." Butler, in his "Hudibras," alludes to
this custom:

"Engag'd with money-bags, as bold
As men with sand-bags did of old."

[947] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 765.

Steevens adds that "a passage in St. Chrysostom very clearly proves the
great antiquity of this practice."

_Fortune-tellers._ A common method of fortune-tellers, in pretending to
tell future events, was by means of a beryl or glass. In an extract from
the "Penal Laws against Witches," it is said, "they do answer either by
voice, or else set before their eyes, in glasses, chrystal stones, etc.,
the pictures or images of the persons or things sought for." It is to
this kind of juggling prophecy that Angelo, in "Measure for Measure"
(ii. 2), refers, when he tells how the law--

"like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
Either new, or by remissness new-conceiv'd."

Again, Macbeth (iv. 1), when "a show of eight kings" is presented to
him, exclaims, after witnessing the seventh:

"I'll see no more:--
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,
Which shows me many more."

Spenser[948] has given a circumstantial account of the glass which
Merlin made for King Ryence. A mirror of the same kind was presented to
Cambuscan, in the "Squier's Tale" of Chaucer; and we are also told how
"a certain philosopher did the like to Pompey, the which showed him in a
glass the order of his enemies' march."[949] Brand, in his "Popular
Antiquities,"[950] gives several interesting accounts of this method of
fortune-telling; and quotes the following from Vallancey's "Collectanea
de Rebus Hibernicis:" "In the Highlands of Scotland, a la