years old, slightly bald. I wear black gaiters,
a spencer, and a claret–coloured tail–coat. Why
shouldn't I?

DEAD (AND GONE) SHOTS.

NOT very long since, a military tribunal at
Dublin was investigating serious charges involving
the character of an officer and a gentleman,
one of which had reference to the prisoner's
having failed to vindicate his honour in the
manner customary among gentlemen fifty years
ago. Almost at the same moment, but "in
another place," an Irish chieftain was pursuing
the same antiquated mode of obtaining redress
for an insult, to be frustrated by a comic
premier, who, with infinite address, turned this
grave bit of chivalry into a political pantomime.
These two instances will serve as a text,
while we glance back at the palmy days when
the duello was part of the gentleman's profession,
and when twelve paces and a saw–handled
Manton were the most grateful salve for wounded
honour.

The English, in many other ways notably
distinguished, fail egregiously in this elegant
accomplishment. In the fasti of the nation there
is a discreditable absence of these exciting
encounters. True, Chalk Farm has its roll of
worthies, the Ring in Hyde Park and the King's
Walk have a few meagre entries; gentlemen
carrying swords have brushed their skirts,
drawn, and exchanged passes. But this is but
a spurious fashion of battle—a gruelly diet. It
never appeared to be racy of the soil: it, had no
healthy root in the country, to be relished with
a keen zest. The natives did not fling
themselves into it with a boisterous abandon.
It lagged and drooped.

Irishmen, on the contrary, have been the most
enthusiastic professors of this refined chivalry:
and Ireland has been the happy hunting
grounds of satisfaction. Wounded honour came
to the green island, and went away soothed
with "a bullet through its thorax"—perhaps was
"pickled and sent home to his friends" in the
legitimate mortuary chest. In no country has
duelling enjoyed so healthy a vitality. It was
sustained con amore. The men and women
of the country flung themselves in the exciting
pastime with a generous enthusiasm. It was
part of the curriculum of education. Every
man was a knight of the pistol.

The days of jubilee for Irish duelling were
those prior to the Union. Now–a–days, this
happy and simple mode of adjustment has
fallen into disfavour. Nothing is so mysterious
as the gradual alteration in a nation's
manners. Strange to say, the old mode of
arbitrament in the very country of "satisfaction"
appears to be utterly extinct. The cold shade of
the Saxon has blighted the honest combativeness
of the children of Erin.

Ireland then was the garden of duellists. Nay,
it almost filled the function of the Propaganda
College at Rome, and supplied a stock of
missionaries to the rest of the world. The Hibernian
element gave the tone to the rest of the
fighting community; and it is remarkable that
in most of the recorded encounters of note,
Captain Kelly, or Captain Lynch, or Captain
Bodkin, had invariably something to do with
the arrangements, in capacity of principal,
second, or, perhaps, accomplished referee—to be
consulted on some neat duelling crux, such as
only a man of elegant experience could decide
on. The world is much beholden to these
gentlemen for their gratuitous services.

About the year seventeen hundred and sixty,
it was usual for every respectable family to
have among its heirlooms the hereditary pistols
—the preservatives and vindicators of the family
honour. These were tenderly regarded and
kept scrupulously clean and oiled: for no man
knew the moment when they would be
required. The handles were mysteriously notched,
and it was with a pardonable pride that the
head of the house, when called on by the
admiring stranger, would proceed to tell off
(guided by those rude chroniclers) the history
of each notch; for by each hung a tale, and—
it must be added—a catastrophe. Sir Jonah
Barrington swells with enthusiasm over a pair
which had been in his family—in constant work
too—since the days of Elizabeth. Of course,
adds the baronet, the cocks and barrels had been
renewed. One of these ancestral "tools" was
known by a phrase of endearment as "sweet
lips;" the other as "the darling," and the
accumulated trophies, contributed by a long series
of the Barrington family, must have been
something very considerable. There was usually
also a companion weapon kept carefully in
the armoury, in case of an adversary drawing
a "choice of weapons;" and the baronet had
a powerful instrument of this description known
as "skiver the pullet"—a happy expression,
in which there lurks what Mr. Carlyle would
call a "deep no–meaning," and on which gloss
or comment would throw much interesting
light. Every domestic hearth had its "skiver
the pullet;" and it may be taken for granted
that each " skiver the pullet" had its own tally
of little legends.

This holy Irish chivalry chastened even the
family circle. On Easter–day a lady from the
west tells the writer how in her youth she recals
one early morning, barely forty years ago, when
the son of the family was sent forth with
blessings to prosecute a last night's quarrel;
and how, when he returned scathless himself,
and without having scathed others, he
was met with lowering brows and ill–concealed
displeasure. The family honour had not been
properly vindicated. The gloom even reacted
upon the children and domestics. The matron
and mother would barely speak to her degenerate
offspring—a picture of the unhealthy state of
manners of the period. Indeed, in the education of
a young man about this time, there was considered
to be an indefinable something wanting, analogous
to the absence of a degree at college, when
he had not qualified with the pistol. As soon
as he became conspicuous enough to be the