155 
between them, and Charles adopting diplomacy agreed even to be 
the bearer of a challenge to Mathews. The two brothers now 
- joined the family circle to the relief of all, and passed a short 
evening very amicably. This passed on sunday night, says the 
last biography, relying as usual on Mrs. H. Lefanu, who is again 
wrong, as it was on saturday night (2nd May). As soon as all 
_had retired the two young men left the house, Richard having 
_ been in Bath, as by his own account, but three hours, and again 
_ there was a post-chaise back to town. Before he left Bath he 
wrote a letter at the Parade Coffee House to Mr. Wade, dated 
saturday, 12 o'clock, znd May, 1772, ‘‘ the evening before his 
second duel,”* says Moore, but it was two evenings before the 
_ first—in which is a full account from his own point of view of the 
Crutched Friars meeting. Arriving in town (on sunday, 3rd May) 
the young men were driven to Mr. Brereton’s lodgings, ‘‘ from whom 
a message was despatched to Mathews.”t This is Mrs. H. 
Lefanu again, and reads as if Mr. Brereton sent or took the 
message, but Charles himself tells that “the same evening” after 
their arrival (sunday, 3rd May) he carried the challenge to 
. athews to meet in Hyde Park next day. Ever ready to accuse 
find blacken Mathews, Richard chose to associate him with the 
“house being closed and the denial of entry in Crutched Friars, 
and reported his conduct as the most craven and dastardly 
conceivable. An Irish song says of a neighbour :— 
If you choose to call at his door 
And find that he isn’t within 
He affronts you, the son of a whore, 
Ogh—make a round hole in his skin. 
* Moore, p. 54. + Rae, p. 178. 
