And this is, I confess, a political incongruity, which I have not a little difficulty in reconciling with the good sense of many who have undertaken to defend it. The law of England has often been blamed (and I think with justice) as unreasonably sanguinary. In answer to this charge it has been said, that, though nearly two hundred offences of almost as many degrees of guilt, are made equally punishable with death; yet justice is administered with so much discretion and mercy, that the penalty is inflicted only on a few. Feeble as this excuse is, for a law that deals in blood, it would be well for the law of Honour if it admitted of such a palliation. But the truth is, that in the latter case there is nothing to abate the demand for blood—the prosecution of every difference is both summary and vindictive: there is no tribunal to enquire into the original matter of the quarrel; no judicature to determine the real merits of the controversy: if the judgment be erroneous, there is no court of equity to reverse the verdict; if rigorous, there is no arm of mercy to withdraw the victim from suffering. It must be evident from this view which has been presented of the law, that, as an injury may be created by the most trivial incident, so punishment may be inflicted with the most preposterous and unequal retribution. I cannot better illustrate the frivolous foundation upon which an injury may be erected, than by adverting to an occurrence of very recent date, and of sufficient notoriety in the Fashionable World. Two men of Fashion, incensed against each other by an accidental quarrel between their respective dogs, dropped, in their warmth, certain expressions which rendered them amenable to the bloody code: duel was declared indispensable: and in less than twelve hours, one of the two was dispatched into eternity, and the other narrowly escaped the same fate. {42}