“To repel injuries and to revenge wrongs, is no less natural to man, than to cultivate friendships; and, while society remains in its most simple state, the former is considered as a personal right no less inalienable than the latter. Nor do men in this situation deem that they have a title to redress their own wrongs alone; they are touched with the injuries done to those with whom they are connected, or in whose honour they are interested, and are no less prompt to avenge them. The savage, how imperfectly soever he may comprehend the principle of political union, feels warmly the sentiments of social affection, and the obligations arising from the ties of blood. On the appearance of an injury or an affront offered to his family or tribe, he kindles into rage, and pursues the author of it with the keenest resentment. He considers it as cowardly to expect redress from any arm but his own, and as infamous to give up to another the right of determining what reparation he should accept, or with what vengeance he should be satisfied.” Here we find the ground-work of duelling,--and it is to be lamented, that man, even in a progressive state of civilization, differs little from the savage in his thirst for gratifying the degrading indulgence of revenge. Let us strip the romantic days of chivalry of their fantastic and glittering panoply,--the hall of wassail of its pomp and beauty,--the troubadour’s fond theme of its florid attractions,--and the feats of knighthood in the cause of the ladies loved _par amours_ of their Quixotic devotion,--and what shall we behold? Treachery and ferocity of the blackest die,--profligacy and debauchery of the most revolting nature,--vice clad by a morbid imagination in the most fascinating garb of virtue,--and a murderer’s brow laurelled by beauty’s hand, instead of falling under the headsman’s axe! Balzac has truly said that we might travel to the world’s end upon _a word_. If we could but define certain _words_, and make that definition recognized by society, which is drawn by reason, instead of fashion and prejudice, how much more happy might we not be! Then should we know the real meaning of the words, “liberty, glory, honour, love, courage,”--now fantastic idols, at whose shrine so much blood has been vainly shed!--while, by a strange perversion of human intellect, _satisfaction_ has been considered to consist in the probable aggravation of our own sufferings, and the misery of all those whom we hold dear.