sign for
carrying off his daughter by force, was compelled to ask for a guard of
dragoons.

Duelling, against which Steele, De Foe, and Fielding inveighed with
courage and good sense, was a danger to which every gentleman was liable
who wore a sword. Bullies were ready to provoke a quarrel, the slightest
cause of offence was magnified into an affair of honour, and the lives
of several of the most distinguished men of the century were imperilled
in this way. 'A gentleman,' Lord Chesterfield writes, 'is every man who,
with a tolerable suit of clothes, a sword by his side, and a watch and
snuffbox in his pockets, asserts himself to be a gentleman, swears with
energy that he will be treated as such, and that he will cut the throat
of any man who presumes to say the contrary.'

The foolish and evil custom died out slowly in this kingdom. Even a
great moralist like Dr. Johnson had something to say in its defence, and
Sir Walter Scott, who might well have laughed to scorn any imputation of
cowardice, was prepared to accept a challenge in his old age for a
statement he had made in his _Life of Napoleon_.

Ladies had a different but equally doubtful mode of asserting their
gentility. On one occasion the Duchess of Marlborough called on a lawyer
without leaving her name. 'I could not make out who she was,' said the
clerk afterwards, 'but she swore so dreadfully that she must be a lady
of quality.'

There was a fashion which our wits followed at this time that was not
of English growth, namely, the tone of gallantry in which they addressed
ladies, no matter whether single or married. Their compliments seemed
like downright love-making, and that frequently of a coarse kind, but
such expressions meant nothing, and were understood to be a mere
exercise of skill. Pope used them in writing to Judith Cowper, whom he
professes to worship as much as any female saint in heaven; and in much
ampler measure when addressing Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but neither
lady would have taken this amatory politeness seriously. Thus he writes
after an evening spent in Lady Mary's society: 'Books have lost their
effect upon me; and I was convinced since I saw you, that there is
something more powerful than philosophy, and since I heard you, that
there is one alive wiser than all the sages.' He tells her that he hates
all other women for her sake; that none but her guardian angels can have
her more constantly in mind; and that the sun has more reason