CRITICS AND CRITICISM. 



No. 18 of the street. His domestic 

 arrangements were set about with 

 that honourable economy which 

 always enabled him to practise great 

 generosity. Thei-e is a sheet of 

 paper containing an inventory, in 

 his own writing, of every article of 

 furniture that he went the length 

 of getting, with the prices. His 

 own study was only made comfort- 

 able at the cost of 7, 185.; the 

 banqueting-hall rose to ,13, 8s., 

 and the drawing-room actually 

 amounted to 22, 19s. (Life by 

 Lord Cockburn.) 



MOORE'S DUEL WITH JEFFREY. 



Francis Jeffrey having, in 1806, 

 attacked Thomas Moore's Odes and 

 JZpistles, for their immorality, in the 

 Edinburgh Review, the poet resolved 

 to challenge the critic to mortal 

 combat. Preliminaries were ac- 

 cordingly arranged for a hostile 

 meeting at Chalk Farm. Moore 

 borrowed his pistols from the poet 

 Spencer, who sent the Bow Street 

 officers to prevent the two little 

 men from killing each other. The 

 sequel is narrated by Moore in his 

 diary : 



"I must have slept pretty well ; 

 for Hume, I remember, had to wake 

 me in the morning, and the chaise 

 being in readiness, we set off for 

 Chalk Farm. Hume had also taken 

 the precaution of providing a sur- 

 geon to be within call. On reach- 

 ing the ground we found Jeffrey and 

 his party already arrived. I say 

 his 'party,' for although Horner 

 only was with him, there were, as 

 we afterwards found, two or three 

 of his attached friends (and no man, 

 I believe, could ever boast of a 

 greater number) who, in their 

 anxiety for his safety, had accom- 

 panied him and were hovering about 

 the spot. And then was it that, for 

 the first time, my excellent friend 

 Jeffrey and I met face to face. He 

 was standing with the bag, which 

 contained the pistols, in his hand, 



while Horner was looking anxiously 

 around. It was agreed that the 

 spot where we found them, which 

 was screened on one side by large 

 trees, would be as good for our 

 purpose as any we could select;, 

 and Horner, after expressing some 

 anxiety respecting some men whom 

 he had seen suspiciously hovering 

 about, but who now appeai*ed to 

 have departed, retired with Hume 

 behind the trees, for the purpose of 

 loading the pistols, leaving Jeffrey 

 and myself together. All this had 

 occupied but a very few minutes. 

 We, of course, had bowed to each 

 other at meeting ; but the first words- 

 I recollect to have passed between 

 us was Jeffrey's saying, on our be- 

 ing left together, 'What a beautiful 

 morning it is ! ' 'Yes,' I answered 

 withaslight smile,a ' morningmade 

 for better purposes ;' to which his 

 only response was a sort of assent- 

 ing sigh. As our assistants were 

 not, any more than ourselves, very 

 expert at warlike matters, they were 

 rather slow in their proceedings ; 

 and as Jeffrey and I walked up and 

 down together, we came once in 

 sight of their operations: upon which 

 I related to him, as rather a propos 

 to the purpose, that Billy Egan, 

 the Irish barrister, once said, when, 

 as he was sauntering about in like 

 manner while the pistols were load- 

 ing, his antagonist, a fiery little 

 fellow called out to him angrily to 

 keep his ground. 'Don't make 

 yourself unaisy, my dear fellow,' 

 said Egan, ' sure, isn't it bad enough 

 to take the dose, without being by 

 at the mixing up?' Jeffrey had 

 scarcely time to smile at this story, 

 when our two friends, issuing from 

 behind the trees, placed us at our 

 respective posts (the distance, I 

 suppose, having been previously 

 measured by them), and put the 

 pistols into our hands. They then 

 retired to a little distance ; the pis- 

 tols were on both sides raised ; and 

 we waited but the signal to fire, 



