You Hectors! tame professors of the sword, Who in the chair state duels, whose black word Bewitches courage, and like Devils too, Leaves the bewitch'd when 't comes to fight and do. Who on your errand our best spirits send, Not to kill swine or cows, but man and friend; Who are a whole court-martial in your drink, And dispute honour, when you cannot think, Not orderly, but prate out valour as You grow inspired by th' oracle of the glass; 10 Then, like our zeal-drunk presbyters, cry down All law of Kings and God, but what's their own. Then y' have the gift of fighting, can discern Spirits, who 's fit to act, and who to learn, Who shall be baffled next, who must be beat, Who killed--that you may drink, and swear, and eat. Whilst you applaud those murders which you teach And live upon the wounds your riots preach. Mere booty-souls! Who bid us fight a prize To feast the laughter of our enemies, 20 Who shout and clap at wounds, count it pure gain, Mere Providence to hear a Compton 's slain. A name they dearly hate, and justly; should They love 't 'twere worse, their love would taint the blood. Blood always true, true as their swords and cause, And never vainly lost, till your wild laws Scandalled their actions in this person, who Truly durst more than you dare think to do. A man made up of graces--every move Had entertainment in it, and drew love 30 From all but him who killed him, who seeks a grave And fears a death more shameful than he gave. Now you dread Hectors! you whom tyrant drink Drags thrice about the town, what do you think? (If you be sober) Is it valour, say, To overcome, and then to run away? Fie! Fie! your lusts and duels both are one; Both are repented of as soon as done. [_To the Hectors_ (_1653_) is struck out in _1677_ and Mr. Berdan does not give it. I asterisk it in text; but as it might be Cleveland's (though I do not think it is) I do not exclude it. The Comptons were a good Royalist family in those days. This Henry (not the Bishop) was killed in 1652 in a duel by George Brydges, Lord Chandos, who died three years later (see Professor Firth's _House of Lords during the Civil War_, p. 223). The fame of the Hectors as predecessors of the Mohocks and possible objects of Milton's objurgation 'flown with insolence and wine', &c., is sufficient. But they seem to have been more methodical maniacs and ruffians than their successors, and even to have had something of the superior quality of Sir Lucius O'Trigger and Captain M^{c}Turk about them, as professors and painful preachers of the necessity and etiquette of the duel.] [Line: 2 state duels] Arrange them like the said Captain M^{c}Turk in _St. Ronan's Well_? word] _1653_ (wrongly for rhyme, though not necessarily for concord) 'words'.]