Chapter XXI (7)

"On the 31st of January I went for the last time to the Palace to take leave of the Schah, and make another portrait of him.... He proposed at first to sit for his profile, but as I objected on the score of its being less interesting:--'Well, well, he said, 'as you wish; you understand the thing better than I do.' He then resumed his conversation with the courtiers, who were ranged in a row at the other end of the room,--sounding my praises in Turkish in the most exaggerated terms, according to the rules of Persian politeness, and remarking among other things how difficult it was to catch an exact likeness so quickly--doubtless to set me at my ease, for he saw I was hurrying in my task. To all these remarks the courtiers merely replied: '_Beli_, _beli_, yes, yes,' in a monotonous and inexpressive tone. The Schah seemed much surprised to learn that I was to leave Teheran the following day. He inquired what motive induced me to leave Persia so soon. I replied, that I was eager to join my family and friends, to inform them of the favors I had received at the hands of His Majesty. For these latter words the interpreter substituted the words 'Centre of the World.' I added, that I intended returning to Teheran with my brother in the course of the following year, at which the Prince of course appeared delighted--'Return soon,' he said, 'you will always be welcome at my court.' Then turning to Mirza-Massoud, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, who had accompanied me:--I have known many Franks,' he remarked, 'but none who pleased me as much as this one.' This phrase, it must be said, loses somewhat of its effect when it is known that the good Prince never failed to address it to every stranger who presented himself. He next inquired of the Minister for Foreign Affairs if the presents he intended for me were ready, and particularly recommended that they should not be worth less than three hundred toumans. I then took leave of His Majesty, backing out of the room as well as I could, while he continued to bestow on me his smiles and gracious words. The next day, on my way to the Russian Embassy, I met four of the King's servants, slowly leading in great ceremony a tall, lame, bay horse. Before they accosted me to tell me so, I had guessed that it was intended for me. I had not had time to take on a fitting air for the occasion before my groom, who was walking beside my horse, began to abuse the Schah's people in most lively terms, refusing to admit such a sorry jade into my stables. In spite of my opposition to so rude an action, and my exclamations in bad Turkish, the Persians returned to the Palace stables, where they chose another horse, which they brought me direct to the Embassy. My groom was not more inclined to receive it than the first, nor to listen to my remonstrances, and those of a dragoman of the Embassy, whose aid I had invoked in order to declare that I accepted the royal gift with due respect. All was useless; the quarrel proceeded,--my squire insisting on performing his duty in spite of myself, and only interrupting himself to make me understand that he was acting in my interest. The Schah's servants at last, reduced to silence by the observations of so zealous a follower, departed once more with their horse to submit the affair to the Prime Minister, who was to decide in his wisdom whether the animal was or was not worthy of being offered to me. A mixture of cleverness and cunning, with an almost childish naivete, seemed to me a striking feature in the Persian character. Hadji-Mirza-Agassi pronounced the steed to be to a certain degree valuable, and requested me to excuse it,--for the present a better could not be offered,--adding, that on my return I should receive a magnificent one."

Prince Soltykoff's remarks generally relate more to the habits and indications of character observable among those whom he visits than to any material objects or physical sensations. The notions entertained of politeness in Persia seem especially to have struck him, as our readers may have seen by the extracts which we have given. We will give one more illustrating the same subject. It has often been said that a knowledge of foreign countries is apt to make us better satisfied with our own, and we have shown how an experience of Oriental gifts may restore the oft-derided snuff-box to honor. Who knows whether even saucy children may not in future be more patiently endured by our readers after the following anecdote. For our own part, we know of no "dear little pickle" whom we would not prefer to this very well-behaved Persian boy:

"Three days afterwards I was at Gazbine, installed in the house of a certain Scherif-Khan, and received in his absence by his four sons, who were all dressed alike, and the eldest of whom was barely eleven. In the midst of the ruins of the town--all Persian towns indeed are mere abominable ruins of mud walls--I considered myself fortunate in obtaining a room and a fire-place. One of the walls of the apartment to which I was conducted consisted of small bits of colored glass, checkered at regular intervals with small squares of wood, for glass is both rare and expensive in Persia. As, however, the greater part of the colored glass was broken, and the wind came rushing through the holes and crevices, I was half frozen and nearly stifled with smoke, until an end was put to my sufferings by stopping the holes and nailing some felt on the doors. The children of the house came, under the guidance of a sort of servant who filled the office of tutor, to pay me a visit, and seated themselves on the floor. The second, who was about ten, and who by right of his mother's superior rank was to inherit all the paternal titles and wealth, inquired after my health; and on my asking him in my turn how he felt, replied with a very stiff little air, 'that in my presence every body must feel satisfied.' I then offered him some cakes, requesting to know if they were to his liking.--'All you offer is very good,' he said, 'and all you eat must be excellent.' I had a cap on my head, and another lay on the table; I questioned him on the value which he attached to the two articles, and asked which he preferred. 'Both are superb,' he replied, 'but the one you prefer is undoubtedly the best.' After this piquant specimen of the civility of the country, it may be supposed that I was not sorry to end the conference, and to get rid of such an excessively well bred child. I took care, however, to send a cup of tea to his mother, who, the tutor informed me, was young and pretty, and lived in the house with three other wives of Scherif-Khan. She found it so much to her liking that she sent to beg for a pound of it."

One word more: Oehlenschlaeger used to complain that when he wrote in Danish he wrote for two hundred readers; Russians are very much in the same case, and Prince Soltykoff, like all his countrymen who desire to have a public, has been obliged to have recourse to a foreign language. But the misfortune is so easily and gracefully borne, that we can scarcely find pity for it. The drawings are well lithographed by French artists. Our neighbors are much fonder of lithographic illustrations than we are, and, it must be admitted, excel us in that branch of art. We have noticed especially the lithographs executed by M. Trayer, a young artist, who is also a painter of promise.

From Leigh Hunt's Journal.

DUELLING TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.

SIR THOMAS DUTTON AND SIR HATTON CHEEK.

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

Peace here, if possible; skins were not made for mere slitting and slashing! You that are for war, cannot you go abroad, and fight the Papist Spaniards? Over in the Netherlands there is always fighting enough. You that are of ruffling humor, gather your truculent ruffians together; make yourselves colonels over them; go to the Netherlands, and fight your bellyful!

Which accordingly many do, earning deathless war-laurels for the moment; and have done, and will continue doing, in those generations. Our gallant Veres, Earl of Oxford and the others, it has long been their way; gallant Cecil, to be called Earl of Wimbledon; gallant Sir John Burroughs, gallant Sir Hatton Cheek,--it is still their way. Deathless military renowns are gathered there in this manner; deathless for the moment. Did not Ben Jonson, in his young hard days, bear arms very manfully as a private soldado there? Ben, who now writes learned plays and court-masks as Poet Laureate, served manfully with pike and sword there, for his groat a day with rations. And once when a Spanish soldier came strutting forward between the lines, flourishing his weapon, and defying all persons in general--Ben stept forth, as I hear; fenced that braggart Spaniard, since no other would do it; and ended by soon slitting him in two, and so silencing him! Ben's war-tuck, to judge by the flourish of his pen, must have had a very dangerous stroke in it.

"Swashbuckler age," we said; but the expression was incorrect, except as a figure. Bucklers went out fifty years ago, "about the twentieth of Queen Elizabeth"; men do not now swash with them, or fight in that way. Iron armor has mostly gone out, except in mere pictures of soldiers; King James said, It was an excellent invention; you could get no harm, and neither could you do any in it. Bucklers, either for horse or foot, are quite gone. Yet old Mr. Stowe, good chronicler, can recollect when every gentleman had his buckler; and at length every serving man and city dandy. Smithfield--still a waste field, full of puddles in wet weather,--was in those days full of buckler duels, every Sunday and holiday in the dry season; and was called Ruffian's Rig, or some such name.

A man, in those days, bought his buckler, of gilt leather and wood, at the haberdasher's; "hung it over his back, by a strap fastened to the pommel of his sword in front." Elegant men showed what taste, or sense of poetic beauty, was in them by the fashion of their buckler. With Spanish beaver, with starched ruff, and elegant Spanish cloak, with elegant buckler hanging at his back, a man, if his moustachios and boots were in good order, stepped forth with some satisfaction. Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard; a decidedly truculent-looking figure. Jostle him in the street thoroughfares, accidentally splash his boots as you pass--by heaven the buckler gets upon his arm, the sword flashes in his fist, with oaths enough; and you too being ready, there is a noise! Clink, clank, death and fury; all persons gathering round, and new quarrels springing from this one! And Dogberry comes up with the town guard? And the shopkeepers hastily close their shops? Nay, it is hardly necessary, says Mr. Howe; these buckler fights amount only to noise, for most part; the jingle of iron against tin and painted leather. Ruffling swashers strutting along with big oaths and whiskers, delight to pick a quarrel; but the rule is you do not thrust, you do not strike below the waist; and it was oftenest a dry duel--mere noise, as of working tinsmiths, with profane swearing! Empty vaporing bullyrooks and braggarts, they encumber the thoroughfares mainly. Dogberry and Verges ought to apprehend them. I have seen, in Smithfield, on a dry holiday, "thirty of them on a side," fighting and hammering as if for life; and was not at the pains to look at them, the blockheads; their noise as the mere beating of old kettles to me!

The truth is, serving-men themselves, and city apprentices had got reckless, and the duels, no death following, ceased to be sublime. About fifty years ago, serious men took to fighting with rapiers, and the buckler fell away. Holles, in Sherwood, as we saw, fought with rapier, and he soon spoiled Markham. Rapier and dagger especially; that is a more silent duel, but a terribly serious one! Perhaps the reader will like to take a view of one such serious duel in those days, and therewith close this desultory chapter.

It was at the siege of Juliers, in the Netherlands wars, of the year 1609; we give the date, for wars are perpetual, or nearly so, in the Netherlands. At one of the storm parties of the siege of Juliers, the gallant Sir Hatton Cheek, above alluded to, a superior officer of the English force which fights there under my Lord Cecil, that shall be Wimbledon; the gallant Sir Hatton, I say, being of hot temper, superior officer, and the service a storm-party on some bastion or demilune, speaks sharp word of command to Sir Thomas Dutton, who also is probably of hot temper in this hot moment. Sharp word of command to Dutton; and the movement not proceeding rightly, sharp word of rebuke. To which Dutton, with kindled voice, answers something sharp; is answered still more sharply with voice high flaming;--whereat Dutton suddenly holds in; says merely, "He is under military duty here, but perhaps will not always be so;" and rushing forward, does his order silently, the best he can. His order done, Dutton straightway lays down his commission; packs up, that night, and returns to England.

Sir Hatton Cheek prosecutes his work at the siege of Juliers; gallantly assists at the taking of Juliers, triumphant over all the bastions, and half-moons there; but hears withal that Dutton is at home in England, defaming him as a choleric tyrant and so forth. Dreadful news, which brings some biliary attack on the gallant man, and reduces him to a bed of sickness. Hardly recovered, he dispatches message to Dutton, That he shall request to have the pleasure of his company, with arms and seconds ready, on some neutral ground,--Calais sands for instance,--at an early day, if convenient. Convenient; yes, as dinner to the hungry! answers Dutton; and time, place, and circumstances are rapidly enough agreed upon.

And so, on Calais sands, on a winter morning of the year 1609, this is what we see most authentically, through the lapse of dim Time. Two gentlemen stript to the shirt and waistband; in two hands of each a rapier and dagger clutched; their looks sufficiently serious! The seconds, having stript, equipt, and fairly overhauled and certified them, are just about retiring from the measured fate-circle, not without indignation that _they_ are forbidden to fight. Two gentlemen in this alarming posture; of whom the Universe knows, has known, and will know nothing, except that they were of choleric humor, and assisted in the Netherlands wars! They are evidently English human creatures, in the height of silent fury and measured circuit of fate; whom we here audibly name once more, Sir Hatton Cheek, Sir Thomas Dutton, knights both, soldadoes both. Ill-fated English human creatures, what horrible confusion of the pit is this?

Dutton, though in suppressed rage, the seconds about to withdraw, will explain some things if a word were granted, "No words," says the other; "stand on your guard!" brandishing his rapier, grasping harder his dagger. Dutton, now silent too, is on his guard. Good heavens! after some brief flourishing and flashing,--the gleam of the swift clear steel playing madly in one's eyes,--they, at the first pass, plunge home on one another; home, with beak and claws; home to the very heart! Cheek's rapier is through Dutton's throat from before, and his dagger is through it from behind,--the windpipe miraculously missed; and, in the same instant, Dutton's rapier is through Cheek's body from before, his dagger through his back from behind,--lungs and life _not_ missed; and the seconds have to advance, "pull out the four bloody weapons," disengage that hell-embrace of theirs. This is serious enough! Cheek reels, his life fast-flowing; but still rushes rabid on Dutton, who merely parries, skips, till Cheek reels down, dead in his rage. "He had a bloody burial there that morning," says my ancient friend. He will assist no more in the Netherlands or other wars.

Such scene does history disclose, as in sunbeams, as in blazing hell-fire, on Calais sands, in the raw winter morning; then drops the blanket of centuries, of everlasting night, over it, and passes on elsewhither. Gallant Sir Hatton Cheek lies buried there, and Cecil of Wimbledon, son of Burleigh, will have to seek another superior officer. What became of the living Dutton afterwards, I have never to this moment had the least hint.

From Blackwood's Magazine

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

_Continued from page 550, Vol. II._