Doubtless, there are men of wonderfully well balanced minds, who go about their business, with great apparent composure, after they have killed their antagonists in duels. Now and then, there is one, who takes things more gravely--_nervously_, perhaps. Poor fellow, he feels rather unpleasantly, when he chances to go by the husbandless mansion--or passes that woman, whom he has made a widow--or sees, hand in hand, those little children, in their sober garments, whom the accursed cunning of his red, right hand has rendered orphans! Such feeble spirits there are--the heart of a duellist should be made of sterner stuff. June 8, 1807, Mr. Colclough was killed in a duel, by Mr. Alcock, who immediately lost his reason, and was carried from the ground to the madhouse. Some years ago, I visited the Lunatic Hospital in Philadelphia; and there saw, among its inmates, a well known gentleman, who had killed _his friend_, in a duel. He had referred, while conversing, to his hair, which had grown very gray, since I last saw him. A bystander said, in a mild way--gray hairs are honorable--"_Aye_," he replied, "_honor made my hairs gray_." I know, very well, that the common, lawless duel is supposed, by many persons, to have sprung from the old _wager of battel_, defined, by Fleta, in his law Latin, _singularis pugnus inter duos ad probandum litem, et qui vicit probasse intelligitur_. The first time we hear of the _wager of Battel_, as a written judicial rule, is A. D. 501, in the reign of Gundibald, king of Burgundy; and it was in use, among the Germans, Danes, and Franks. The practice or usage was common, however, to all the Celtic nations. It came into England, with William the Conqueror. It happens, however, that men have ever been disposed to settle their disputes, by fighting about them, since the world began. If the classical reader will open his Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., and read the first sentence of section 118, he will see, that, when Quintilius Varus endeavored to persuade the rude Germans, to adopt the laws and usages of Rome, in the adjustment of their disputes, between man and man, they laughed at his simplicity, and told him they had a summary mode of settling these matters, among themselves, by the arm of flesh. This occurred, shortly after the birth of Christ, or about 500 years _before_ the time of Gundibald. Instead of attempting to trace the origin of modern duelling to the legalized _wager of battel_, we may as well look for its moving cause, in the heart of man.