Ube Hxm. (Brantles ff* Berkeley 455 



Berkeley the satisfaction due from one gentleman to 

 another. A duel was the result. According to the 

 account Berkeley gives in his " Recollections," which 

 must be taken with a liberal grain of salt, it was a most 

 ridiculous affair. Maginn's seconds had forgotten to 

 bring cither powder or ball, the pistols they produced 

 were out of order, and Grantley had to lend one of his 

 own pistols to his opponent. At the first exchange of 

 shots Maginn nearly blew his own toe off, for he pulled 

 the trigger as he was raising his weapon, and the bullet 

 went into the ground within an inch of his foot. Two 

 more shots were exchanged, and then Maginn was led 

 off the field apparently wounded, though, as a matter of 

 fact, I believe he was untouched. And there the incident 

 in gloriously ended ingloriously for both, I think, fo^ 

 despite the ridicule he throws upon the affair, Grantley 

 Berkeley does not appear to me to have cut a much 

 more creditable figure than his adversary. 



I have dwelt at some length on this episode in 

 Grantley Berkeley's life because I consider that he has 

 not been fairly treated in the matter by those who have 

 told the story. Literary men have had a natural bias in 

 favour of the brilliant Irish journalist, and they have not 

 done justice to Grantley Berkeley, who was goaded into 

 assaulting a man weaker than himself by as cruel, 

 cowardly, and blackguardly a libel as ever disgraced the 

 pages of any periodical. 



When the Earl of Eglinton first conceived the idea 

 of that historic Tournament with which his name will 

 always be associated, Grantley Berkeley was one of those 

 asked to figure as knights in "the joyous passage of arms." 



