The most sinister figure amongst these wild gallants is the Lord Mohun, who killed, and was killed by, the Duke of Hamilton, as all the readers of the 'Journals' of Swift or of 'Colonel Esmond' remember. He appears twice in the collection. On December 9, 1690, Mohun and his friend Colonel Hill came swaggering into the play-house, and got from the pit upon the stage. An attendant asks them to pay for their places; whereupon Lord Mohun nobly refuses, saying, 'If you bring any of your masters I will slit their noses.' The pair have a coach-and-six waiting in the street to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle, to whom Hill has been making love. As she is going home to supper, they try to force her into it with the help of half-a-dozen soldiers. The bystanders prevent this; but the pair insist upon seeing Mrs. Bracegirdle to her house, and mount guard outside with their swords drawn. Mrs. Bracegirdle and her friends stand listening at the door, and hear them vowing vengeance against Mountford, of whom Hill was jealous. Presently the watch appears—the constable and the beadle, and a man in front with a lantern. The constable asks why are the swords drawn. Mrs. Bracegirdle through the door hears Mohun reply, 'I am a Peer of England, touch me if you dare.' 'God bless your honour,' replies the constable, 'I know not what you are, but I hope you are doing no harm.' 'No,' said he. 'You may knock me down, if you please,' adds Colonel Hill. 'Nay, said I' (the lantern-bearer), 'we never use to knock gentlemen down unless there be occasion.' And the judicious watch retire to a tavern in the next street, in order, as they say, 'to examine what they (Mohun and Hill) were, and what they were doing.' There was, as the constable explains, 'a drawer there, who had formerly lived over against him,' and might throw some light upon the proceedings of these polite gentlemen. But, alas! 'in the meantime the murder was done.' For as another witness tells us, Mr. Mountford came up the street and was speaking coolly to Mohun, when Hill came up behind and gave him a box on the ear. 'Saith Mr. Mountford, what's that for? And with that he (Hill) whipped out his sword and made a pass at him, and I turned about and cried murder!' Mountford was instantly killed; but witnesses peeping through doors, and looking out of windows, gave conflicting accounts of the scuffle in the dim street, and Lord Mohun, after much argument as to the law, was acquitted. Five years later, he appears in the case reported by Esmond, with little more than a change in the names. An insensate tavern-brawl is followed by an adjournment to Leicester Fields; six noblemen and gentlemen in chairs; Mr. Coote, the chief actor in the quarrel, urging his chairman by threatening to goad him with his sword. The gentlemen get over the railings and vanish into the 'dark wet' night, whilst the chairmen philosophically light their pipes. The pipes are scarcely alight, when there is a cry for help. Somehow a