the insult come solely from
him, I might then, with some justice, have intrenched myself in my
superiority of rank--contempt would have been as optional as revenge:
but I had left myself no alternative in being the aggressor, for if
my birth was to preserve me from redressing an injury, it was also to
preserve me from committing one. I confess, that the thing would have
been wholly different had it been an English, instead of a French, man;
and this, because of the different view of the nature and importance of
the affront, which the Englishman would take. No English tradesman has
an idea of les lois d'armes--a blow can be returned, or it can be paid
for.

But in France, neither a set-to, nor an action for assault, would repay
the generality of any class removed from the poverty of the bas peuple,
for so great and inexcusable an affront. In all countries it is the
feelings of the generality of people, that courtesy, which is the
essence of honour, obliges one to consult. As in England I should,
therefore, have paid, so in France I fought.

If it be said that a French gentleman would not have been equally
condescending to a French tradesman, I answer that the former would
never have perpetrated the only insult for which the latter might think
there could be only one atonement. Besides, even if this objection
held good, there is a difference between the duties of a native and a
stranger. In receiving the advantages of a foreign country, one ought
to be doubly careful not to give offence, and it is therefore doubly
incumbent upon us to redress it when given. To the feelings of the
person I had offended, there was but one redress. Who can blame me if I
granted it?

CHAPTER XIV.

Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum et salis haberet et
fellis, nec candoris minus.--Pliny.

I do not know a more difficult character to describe than Lord
Vincent's. Did I imitate certain writers, who think that the whole art
of pourtraying individual character is to seize hold of some prominent
peculiarity, and to introduce this distinguishing trait, in all times
and in all scenes, the difficulty would be removed. I should only have
to present to the reader a man, whose conversation was nothing but
alternate jest and quotation--a due union of Yorick and Partridge. This
would, however, be rendering great injustice to the character I wish
to delineate. There were times when Vincent was earnestly engrossed
in discussion