It is worthy of remark, that these reputed injuries are sometimes so minute and transitory, or so remote and obscure, that, if every thing depended upon the aggressor and the aggrieved, they would either remain wholly undiscovered, or, at least, be speedily forgotten. But each of these consequences is not unfrequently defeated by the officious industry of some kind-hearted being, who, though he loves his friend too well to let him be insulted, can govern his feelings well enough to stand by and see him murdered. This is, certainly, a refinement upon the theory of friendship, which may be fairly set down among the most extraordinary achievements of the _Law of Honour_. Indeed, this bloody code has many such refinements. For, proceeding, as it does, upon principles of its own invention, it must necessarily clash with many antecedent obligations. These, however, it contrives, by the help of a little sophistry, so to supersede, that neither affinity nor attachment may impede the progress of honourable revenge: and hence we see, in compliance with its rigid edicts, the warmest friends sacrifice to resentment with as little reserve as the bitterest enemies; and that, perhaps, to settle a tavern dispute, or to avenge a play-house quarrel! Having said so much of the principal duty enjoined by the Law of Honour, I shall offer a few observations upon the sort of punishment which it inflicts. I trust I shall be excused, if, in treating this part of my subject, I employ the term _punishment_ in a sense not strictly similar to that in which it is ordinarily used. The fact is, that this singular law makes the parties both judges in their own cause, and executioners of their own sentence. The universal award against every convicted offender is, that he shall fight a duel with the offended party. So that, if that may be set down as punishment, which is ultimate in a controversy, and which is exacted as a satisfaction to the law; death, or exposure to it, is the lowest punishment which honour inflicts upon the least offender; and the highest which it enforces upon the greatest.