the best blood of England, here is he switched over the crown by an accursed Scotch Ramsay! We hear the swift-stinging descent of the ignominious horse-switch; we see the swiftblazing countenances of gods and men. Instantaneous shriek, as was inevitable, rises near and far: The Scotch insolence, Scotch pride and hunger, Scotch damnability! And a cripple man, with only the use of three fingers,' crooked of shape, hot of temper, rode about the field with drawn dagger; urging in a shrill manner, that we should prick every Scotch lown of them home to their own beggarly country again, or to the Devil,-off Croydon Heath, at least. The name of this shrill individual, with dagger grasped between two fingers and a thumb, was John Pinchback' or Pinchbeck; and appears here in History, with something like golden lustre, for one moment and no more. Let us breakfast on them at Croydon," cries Pinchbeck, in a shrill, inspired manner; "and sup on them at London!" The hour was really ominous. But Philip Herbert, beautiful young man, himself of infirm temper and given to strokes, stood firmly dissuasive: he is in the King's service, how shall he answer it; he was himself to blame withal. And young Edward Sackville is, with his young friend Bruce of Kinloss, firmly dissuasive; it is the Bruce whom we saw at the chapel-door, stepping-out a new-made knight, now here with Sackville; dear friends these, not always to be friends! But for the present they are firmly dissuasive; all considerate persons are dissuasive. Pinchbeck's dagger brandishes itself in vain. Sits the wind so, O Pinchbeck? Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother: this is her son, and he stands a switch?-Yes, my shrill crookbacked friend, to avoid huge riot and calamity, he does so and I see a massive nobleness in the man, which thou, egregious cock of bantam, wilt never in this world comprehend, but only crow over in thy shrill way. Ramsay and the Scots, and all persons, rode home unharmed that night; and my shrill friend gradually composed himself again. Philip Herbert may expect knighthoods, lordhoods, court-promotions: neither did his heroic mother 'tear her hair,' I think, to any great extent, —except in the imaginations of Osborne, Pinchbeck and suchlike. This was the scene of Croydon Races; a fact, and signifi cant of many facts, that hangs-out for us like a cloud-island, and is not cloud.1 No. III. SIR THOMAS DUTTON AND SIR HATTON CHEEK. His Majesty, as I perceive in spite of calumnies, was not a 'coward;' see how he behaved in the Gowrie Conspiracy and elsewhere. But he knew the value, to all persons, and to all interests of persons, of a whole skin; how unthrifty everywhere is any solution of continuity, if it can be avoided! He struggled to preside pacifically over an age of some ferocity much given to wrangling. Peace here, if possible; skins were not made for mere slitting and slashing! You that are for war, cannot you go abroad, and fight the Papist Spaniards? Over in the Netherlands there is always fighting enough. You that are of ruffling humour, gather your truculent ruffians together; make yourselves colonels over them; go to the Netherlands, and fight your bellyful! Which accordingly many do, earning deathless war-laurels for the moment; and have done, and will continue doing, in those generations. Our gallant Veres, Earl of Oxford and the others, it has long been their way: gallant Cecil, to be called Earl of Wimbledon; gallant Sir John Burroughs, gallant Sir Hatton Cheek,-it is still their way. Deathless military re nowns are gathered there in this manner; deathless for the moment. Did not Ben Jonson, in his young hard days, bear arms very manfully as a private soldado there? Ben, who now writes learned plays and court-masks as Poet Laureate, served manfully with pike and sword there for his groat a day with rations. And once when a Spanish soldier came strutting forward between the lines, flourishing his weapon, and defying all persons in general,-Ben stept forth, as I hear ;5 fenced that braggart Spaniard, since no other would do it; and ended by soon slitting him in two, and so silencing him! Ben's war-tuck, to judge by the flourish of his pen, must have had a very dangerous stroke in it. 4 Francis Osborne's Traditional Memorials on the Reign of James the First (Reprinted in Sir Walter Scott's History of the Court of James I. Edinburgh, 1811), pp. 220-227. 5 Life of Ben Jonson. 'Swashbuckler age,' we said; but the expression was incorrect, except as a figure. Bucklers went out fifty years ago, 'about the twentieth of Queen Elizabeth;' men do not now swash with them, or fight in that way. Iron armour has mostly gone out, except in mere pictures of soldiers: King James said, It was an excellent invention; you could get no harm in it, and neither could you do any. Bucklers, either for horse or foot, are quite gone. Yet old Mr. Stowe, good chronicler, can recollect when every gentleman had his buckler: and at length every serving-man and City dandy. Smithfield,-still a waste field, full of puddles in wet weather,—was in those days full of buckler-duels, every Sunday and holiday in the dry season; and was called Ruffian's Rig, or some such name. A man, in those days, bought his buckler, of gilt leather and wood, at the haberdasher's; 'hung it over his back, by a strap fastened to the pommel of his sword in front.' Elegant men showed what taste, or sense of poetic beauty, was in them, by the fashion of their buckler. With Spanish beaver, with starched ruff, and elegant Spanish cloak, with elegant buckler hanging at his back, a man, if his moustachios and boots were in good order, stepped forth with some satisfaction. Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard; a decidedly truculent-looking figure. Jostle him in the street thoroughfares, accidentally splash his boots as you pass,—by Heaven, the buckler gets upon his arm, the sword flashes in his fist, with oaths enough; and you too being ready, there is a noise! Clink, clank, death and fury; all persons gathering round, and new quarrels springing from this one! And Dogberry comes up with the town-guard? And the shopkeepers hastily close their shops? Nay, it is hardly necessary, says Mr. Howe : these buckler-fights amount only to noise, for most part; the jingle of iron against tin and painted leather. Ruffling swashers strutting along, with big oaths and whiskers, delight to pick a quarrel; but the rule is, you do not thrust, you do not strike below the waist; and it was oftenest a dry duel-mere noise, as of working tinsmiths, with profane swearing! Empty vapouring bullyrooks and braggarts, they encumber the thoroughfares mainly. Dogberry and Verges ought to apprehend them. I have seen, in Smithfield on a dry holiday, 'thirty of them on a side,' fighting and hammering as if for life; and was not at the pains to look at them, the blockheads; their noise as the mere beating of old kettles to me! The truth is, serving-men themselves, and City apprentices, had got bucklers; and the duels, no death following, ceased to be sublime. About fifty years ago, serious men took to fighting with rapiers, and the buckler fell away. Holles in Sherwood, as we saw, fought with rapier, and he soon spoiled Markham. Rapier and dagger especially; that is a more silent duel, but a terribly serious one! Perhaps the reader will like to take a view of one such serious duel in those days, and therewith close this desultory chapter. It was at the siege of Juliers, in the Netherlands wars, of the year 1610;7 we give the date, for wars are perpetual, or nearly so, in the Netherlands. At one of the storm-parties of the siege of Juliers, the gallant Sir Hatton Cheek, above alluded to, a superior officer of the English force which fights there under my Lord Cecil, that shall be Wimbledon; the gallant Sir Hatton, I say, being of hot temper, superior officer, and the service a storm-party on some bastion or demilune, speaks sharp word of command to Sir Thomas Dutton, the officer under him, who also is probably of hot temper in this hot moment. Sharp word of command to Dutton; and the movement not proceeding rightly, sharp word of rebuke. To which Dutton, with kindled voice, answers something sharp; is answered still more sharply with voice high-flaming ;-whereat Dutton suddenly holds in; says merely, "He is under military duty here, but perhaps will not always be so;" and rushing forward, does his order silently, the best he can. His order done, Dutton straightway lays down his commission; packs up, that night, and returns to England. 6 Stowe's Chronicle, and Howe's Continuation, 1024, &c. 7 Siege began in the latter end of July 1610; ended victoriously, 4th September following: principal assaults were, 10th August and 14th August; in one of which this affair of ours must have taken rise. Siege commanded by Christian of Anhalt, a famed Protestant Captain of those times. Henri IV. of France was assassinated while setting-out for this siege; Prince Maurice of Nassau was there; Dutch troops, French, English and German' (Brandenburgers and Pfalz-Neuburgers chiefly, versus Kaiser Rodolf II. and his unjust seizure of the Town) 'fought with the greatest unity.' Prelude to the ThirtyYears War, and one of the principal sources of it, this Controversy about Juliers. (Carl Friedrich Pauli: Allgemeine Preussische Staats-Geschichte, 4to, Halle, 1762, iii. 502-527.) Sir Hatton Cheek prosecutes his work at the siege of Juliers; gallantly assists at the taking of Juliers, triumphant over all the bastions and half-moons there; but hears withal that Dutton is, at home in England, defaming him as a choleric tyrant and so forth. Dreadful news; which brings some biliary attack on the gallant man, and reduces him to a bed of sickHardly recovered, he despatches message to Dutton, That he will request to have the pleasure of his company, with arms and seconds ready, on some neutral ground, -Calais sands for instance,—at an early day, if convenient. Convenient; yes, as dinner to the hungry! answers Dutton; and time, place and circumstances are rapidly enough agreed upon. ness. And so, on Calais sands, in a winter morning of the year 1610, this is what we see, most authentically, through the lapse of dim Time. Two gentlemen stript to the shirt and waistband; in the two hands of each a rapier and dagger clutched; their looks sufficiently serious! The seconds, having stript, equipt, and fairly overhauled and certified them, are just about retiring from the measured fate-circle, not without indignation that they are forbidden to fight. Two gentlemen in this alarming posture; of whom the Universe knows, has known, and will know nothing, except that they were of choleric humour, and assisted in the Netherlands wars! They are evidently English human creatures, in the height of silent fury, and measured circuit of fate; whom we here audibly name once more, Sir Hatton Cheek, Sir Thomas Dutton, knights both, soldadoes both. Illfated English human creatures, what horrible confusion of the Pit is this? Dutton, though in suppressed rage, the seconds about to withdraw, will explain some things if a word were granted. "No words," says the other; "stand on your guard!" brandishing his rapier, grasping harder his dagger. Dutton, now silent too, is on his guard. Good Heavens after some brief flourishing and flashing,—the gleam of the swift clear steel playing madly in one's eyes,-they, at the first pass, plunge home on one another; home, with beak and claws; home to the very heart! Cheek's rapier is through Dutton's throat from before, and his dagger is through it from behind, -the windpipe miraculously missed; and, in the same instant, Dutton's rapier is through Cheek's body from before, his dagger through |