Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/292

282 diſſembled his uneaſineſs for the preſent, and very politely entertained the company till five o’clock in the morning, when he went away without the ceremony of taking leave; and the next news that was heard of him was from Paris, from whence he ſent a challenge to lord Cd, to follow him to Flanders.

The challenge was delivered by his ſervant, and was to this effect: ‘That his lordſhip might remember his ſaying he took up his glove in all its forms, which upon mature reflexion, his grace looked upon to be ſuch an affront, as was not to be born, wherefore he deſired his lordſhip to meet him at Valenciennes, where he would expect him with a friend and a pair of piſtols; and on failure of his lordſhip’s coming his grace would poſt him,’ &c.

The ſervant who delivered the letter, did not keep its contents a ſecret; and lord Cd was taken into cuſtody, when he was about ſetting out to meet his grace. All that remained then for his lordſhip to do, was to ſend a gentleman into Flanders, to acquaint the duke with what happened to him. His grace upon ſeeing the gentleman, imagining him to be his lordſhip’s ſecond, ſpoke to him in this manner; ‘Sir, I hope my lord will favour me ſo far as to let us uſe piſtols, becauſe the wound I received in my foot before Gibraltar, in ſome meaſure diſables me from the ſword.’ Hereupon the gentleman replied with ſome emotion, ‘My lord duke, you might chuſe what you pleaſe; my lord Cd will fight you with any weapon, from a ſmall pin to a great cannon; but this is not the caſe, my lord is under an arreſt, by order of the duke of Berwick.’

His grace being thus diſappointed in the duel, and his money being almoſt ſpent, he returned to Paris, and was alſo put under an arreſt till the affair was made up by the interpoſition of the duke of