end of "Bragelonne," and to part with them for ever. "Suppose
Porthos, Athos, and Aramis should enter with a noiseless swagger,
curling their moustaches." How we would welcome them, forgiving
D'Artagnan even his hateful fourberie in the case of Milady. The
brilliance of your dialogue has never been approached: there is wit
everywhere; repartees glitter and ring like the flash and clink of
small-swords. Then what duels are yours! and what inimitable
battle-pieces! I know four good fights of one against a multitude,
in literature. These are the Death of Gretir the Strong, the Death
of Gunnar of Lithend, the Death of Hereward the Wake, the Death of
Bussy d'Amboise. We can compare the strokes of the heroic fighting-
times with those described in later days; and, upon my word, I do
not know that the short sword of Gretir, or the bill of Skarphedin,
or the bow of Gunnar was better wielded than the rapier of your
Bussy or the sword and shield of Kingsley's Hereward.

They say your fencing is unhistorical; no doubt it is so, and you
knew it. La Mole could not have lunged on Coconnas "after deceiving
circle;" for the parry was not invented except by your immortal
Chicot, a genius in advance of his time. Even so Hamlet and Laertes
would have fought with shields and axes, not with small swords. But
what matters this pedantry? In your works we hear the Homeric Muse
again, rejoicing in the clash of steel; and even, at times, your
very phrases are unconsciously Homeric.

Look at these men of murder, on the Eve of St. Bartholomew, who flee
in terror from the Queen's chamber, and "find the door too narrow
for their flight:" the very words were anticipated in a line of the
"Odyssey" concerning the massacre of the Wooers. And the picture of
Catherine de Medicis, prowling "like a wolf among the bodies and the