The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV.Cibber, Theophilus
General
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV.
Cibber, Theophilus
Poets, English -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Poets, Irish -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
This instance of wanton vanity, the duke could not help resenting,
though he often declared since the quarrel, that he never had the
least suspicion of the duchess's honour. He resolved therefore very
prudently to call the Scots lord to an account, without letting
him know it was for the duchess or so much as mentioning her name;
accordingly he took occasion to do it in this manner.
It happened that the duke of Wharton and his lordship met at a lady's
whom they mutually visited, and the duke dropping his glove by chance,
his lordship took it up, and returned it to the duke; who thereupon
asked him if he would take it up in all it's forms? To which his
lordship answered, yes, my lord, in all its forms.
Some days after, the duke gave a ball at St. Germains, to which he
invited the Scots nobleman, and some person indiscretely asked his
grace whether he had forbid the duchess's dancing with lord C----.
This gave the duke fresh reason to believe that the Scots peer had
been administring new grounds for his resentment, by the wantonness
of calumny. He dissembled his uneasiness for the present, and very
politely entertained the company till five o'clock in the morning,
when he went away without the ceremony of taking leave; and the next
news that was heard of him was from Paris, from whence he sent a
challenge to lord C----d, to follow him to Flanders.
The challenge was delivered by his servant, and was to this effect:
'That his lordship might remember his saying he took up his glove in
all its forms, which upon mature reflexion, his grace looked upon to
be such an affront, as was not to be born, wherefore he desired his
lordship to meet him at Valenciennes, where he would expect him with a
friend and a pair of pistols; and on failure of his lordship's coming
his grace would post him, &c.
The servant who delivered the letter, did not keep its contents a
secret; and lord C----d was taken into custody, when he was about
setting out to meet his grace. All that remained then for his lordship
to do, was to send a gentleman into Flanders, to acquaint the duke
with what happened to him. His grace upon seeing the gentleman,
imagining him to be his lordship's second, spoke to him in this
manner; 'Sir, I hope my lord will favour me so far as to let us use
pistols, because the wound I received in my foot before Gibraltar,
in some measure disables me from the sword.' Hereupon the gentleman
replied with some emotion, 'My lord duke, you might chuse what you
please; my lord C----d will fight you with any weapon, from a small
pin to a great cannon; but this is not the case, my lord is under an
arrest, by order of the duke of Berwick.'
His grace being thus disappointed in the duel, and his money being
almost spent, he returned to Paris, and was also put under an arrest
till the affair was made up by the interposition of the duke of
Berwick, under whose cognizance it properly came as Marshal of France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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