their skill in a duel."

This observation, insisted upon, and inculcated, as she knew how, was very seasonable at that time of danger. And she never forgot to urge upon me, that the science I was learning, was a science properly called of defence and not of offence; at the same time endeavouring to caution me against the low company into which a dexterity at my weapons might lead me, as well as against the diversions themselves exhibited at the infamous places where those brutal people resorted:

Infamous even by namea as well as in the nature of them.
From her instructions, I had an early notion, that it was much more noble to forgive an injury than to resent it: and to give a life than to take it. My Father (I honour his memory! was a man of gaiety, of munificence. He had great qualities. But my Mother was my oracle. And he was always so just to her merit, as to command me to consider her as such; and the rather, he used to say, as she distinguished well between the false glory and the true; and would not have her boy a coward.
Mr. Mer. A good beginning, by my life!
Mr. Jord. Pray proceed, Sir Charles. I am all attention.
Sir Har. Ay, ay, we all listen.
Mr. Bag. Curse him that speaks next, to interrupt you.
Sir Ch. But what indelibly impressed upon my heart my Mother's lessons, was an occurrence, which, and the consequences of it, I shall ever deplore. My Father, having taken leave of my Mother, on a proposed absence of a few days, was, in an hour after, brought home, as it was thought mortally wounded in a duel. My Mother's surprise on this occasion threw her into fits, from which she never after was wholly free. And these, and the dangerous way he continued in for some time, brought her into an ill state of health; broke, in short, her constitution; so that, in less than a twelvemonth, my Father, to his inexpressible anguish of mind (continually reproaching himself on the occasion) lost the best of Wives, and my Sisters and I the best of Mothers and Instructors.
My concern for my Father, on whom I was an hourly attendant throughout the whole time of his confinement; and my being by that means a witness of what both he and my mother suffered; completed

my abhorrence of the vile practice of duelling. I went on, however