for so great and inexcusable an affront. In all countries it is the
feelings of the generality of people, that courtesy, which is the essence
of honour, obliges one to consult. As in England I should, therefore,
have paid, so in France I fought.

If it be said that a French gentleman would not have been equally
condescending to a French tradesman, I answer that the former would never
have perpetrated the only insult for which the latter might think there
could be only one atonement. Besides, even if this objection held good,
there is a difference between the duties of a native and a stranger. In
receiving the advantages of a foreign country, one ought to be doubly
careful not to give offence, and it is therefore doubly incumbent upon us
to redress it when given. To the feelings of the person I had offended,
there was but one redress. Who can blame me if I granted it?




CHAPTER XIV.

Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum et salis haberet
et fellis, nec candoris minus.--Pliny.

I do not know a more difficult character to describe than Lord Vincent's.
Did I imitate certain writers, who think that the whole art of
pourtraying individual character is to seize hold of some prominent
peculiarity, and to introduce this distinguishing trait, in all times and
in all scenes, the difficulty would be removed. I should only have to
present to the reader a man, whose conversation was nothing but alternate
jest and quotation--a due union of Yorick and Partridge. This would,