CHARGE AGAINST DUELS/ 119 



&quot; tur, quod ssepc contra accidit.&quot; But howsoever it 

 be, this kind of fight taketh its warrant from law. 

 Nay, the French themselves, whence this folly seem- 

 eth chiefly to have flown, never had it but only in 

 practice and toleration, and never as authorized by 

 law ; and yet now of late they have been fain to 

 purge their folly with extreme rigour, in so much as 

 many gentlemen left between death and life in the 

 duels, as I spake before, were hastened to hanging 

 with their wounds bleeding. For the state found it 

 had been neglected so long, as nothing could be 

 thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it 

 down. 



As for the second defect pretended in our law, 

 that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, 

 it may receive like answer. It would have been 

 thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers, 

 to have set a punishment upon the lie given, which 

 in effect is but a word of denial, a negative of an 

 other s saying. Any lawgiver, if he had been asked 

 the question, would have made Solon s answer : that 

 he had not ordained any punishment for it, because 

 he never imagined the world would have been so 

 fantastical as to take it so highly. The civilians, 

 they dispute whether an action of injury lie for it, 

 and rather resolve the contrary. And Francis the 

 First of France, who first set on and stamped this 

 disgrace so deep, is taxed by the judgment of all 

 wise writers for beginning the vanity of it ; for it 

 was he, that when he had himself given the lie and 

 defy to the emperor, to make it current in the 



