SWORDS.
“I love an enemy, I was born a soldier;
And he that at the head of his troop defies me,
Binding my manly body with his sword
I make my mistress.”—Bonduca.
In the first book of the Peloponnesian War, it is stated by Thucydides that “the people of the Continent exercised robberies upon one another; and to this very day,” he adds, “the people of Greece are supported by the same practices.” The great historian especially names the Ozolian Locrians, Ætolians, and Acarnanians, and their neighbours on the continent; among whom, as he informs his readers, the custom of wearing their swords, or other weapons required by their old life of rapine, was still retained. “This custom,” continues the writer, “of wearing weapons, once prevailed throughout Greece, as the houses had no manner of defence, as travelling was full of hazard, and the whole lives of the people were passed in armour, like barbarians. A proof of this,” says the civilized Thucydides, “is the continuance still in some parts of Greece of these manners, which were once with uniformity general to all. The Athenians were the first who discontinued the custom of wearing their swords, and who passed from the dissolute life into more polite and elegant manners.”
What the Athenians did so long ago was not accomplished in our own metropolis until the end of the first quarter, or rather the beginning of the second half, of the last century. The example, slowly set by London, was soon enforced at Bath. I say “enforced,” because there was a pleasant despot there, who ruled so supreme that the very “Baths of Bath” seemed only to flow at his permission.
It was in presence of “Beau Nash” that fell the swords and top-boots of the squires and the aprons of the ladies. The results thereof, at least of the putting aside the sword, at Bath and in London, and throughout the country generally, where gallant submitted to be disarmed in obedience to law or to custom, may be described in the language of Thucydides, as applied to the Athenians when they abandoned ruffianism and adopted refinement:—“Men passed from the dissolute life into more polite and elegant manners.”
In the simple old Saxon days the sword played a considerable part in the making of a knight. The candidate for chivalry was required, the day before his consecration, to confess; and then pass the night in the church, in prayer and fasting. On the following day he was to hear mass, and during the service he placed his sword upon the altar; the priest, after the Gospel, took the weapon, blessed it, and then, with benison on the warrior, laid the blade on the neck of the knight, who however was not a knight complete until he had received the Sacrament as a complement of the blessing.
Thus the Church made her own cavaliers: but the Normans, who came among us under a banner blessed by the Pope, held his method of consecration in scorn and abomination. The knights so made they accounted of as no knights at all, but as mere “tardy troopers and degenerate plebeians.” So, in modern times, a militia ensign with a Norman name affects to look with contempt on a “captain” who may have fought his way to his title in Spain or South America; and the young noble who at Oxford has taken a degree, not conferred by right of knowledge, but seized by right of nobility, pretends to look down upon men who, at Bonn, at Marburg, or at Göttingen, have penned their Latin thesis, and maintained its statements against all adversaries, and who have won their honours,—in short, by earning and deserving them.
They were godless fellows, those Normans, though they did come with a papal benediction. Previous to their appearance no deed was legal that was not marked by golden crosses and other sacred signs. The Northmen changèrent tout cela: they transferred estates simply by word of mouth, without writing or charter, and only with the sword, helmet, horn, or cup of the owner. Tenements, we are told, were conveyed with a spur, a bow, an arrow, or even a “body-scraper.” But this was soon found to be inconvenient; and then the conquerors introduced the custom of confirming deeds by wax impressions, made by the especial seal of each person, with the subscription thereto of three or four witnesses present. Now many a Norman had no other seal than the end of the pommel of his sword, and by such an instrument many a Saxon was pommelled out of his estate.
And what were these Normans, from whom so many amongst us are proud to trace their descent? They were—at least good numbers of them were—unbaptized thieves. Such certainly were the Mandevilles and Dandevilles, the Mohuns and Bohuns, the Bissets and Bassets. These were fellows who had converted themselves to Christianity fifty times in the course of the year, for the sake of the garment given each time to every convert. Those renowned swordsmen, the Dagotes, Bastards, Talbots, Laceys, Percys,—what were they but so many robbers who came hither penniless, and were very much astonished at the superabundance of their own good fortune?
Still lower in the scale must have been those Norman swordsmen whose names translated signify Bull-head, Ox-eye, Dirty-villain, Breechless, and the like. Nay, Wim (the) Carter, Hugh (the) Tailor, and Wim (the) Drummer stand recorded in the Monast. Anglic. as having been made Norman knights and noble by right of conquest. The ancestor of one of our proudest dukes was a plundering scoundrel, who, having no name at all, was known by that of the town in which he had been recruited,—St. Maur; and the ladies of the Somerset family do not appear ashamed of the descent, since they, not long ago, adopted the old name in preference to that of Seymour, which some of the branches of the family still retain.
Our Chaloners, Rochfords, and Chaworths can boast of no more honourable ancestry: they all spring from the sword-begirt loins of vagabonds, born or recruited in Châlons, Rochefort, and Cahors; and the honourable house of Sacheverele has no more glorious founder than a limping brigand, known by the name of “Saute Chevreau,” or “Saut de Chevreau,” because he hopped like a goat. Why, if antiquity of name be a thing to boast of, that of John Adams should be most admired among men; and Winnifred Jenkins is, in such case, more truly noble than the proudest Norman of them all.
I have noticed how possession was sometimes given with the sword. It was perhaps in allusion to that old custom that Jack Cade touched with his weapon that ancient piece of mystery, “London Stone.” He felt that his title was not good until that ceremony was performed; and, that done, “Now!” exclaimed that popular hater of national schools, “now is Mortimer Lord of London city!” His worship the Mayor carries, by his deputy, a similar weapon, as emblem of his sovereignty. The sword in the City shield has another signification. Some have supposed it was placed there in memory of the gallant chief magistrate who so summarily despatched Wat Tyler; but the sword was in the City shield long before that period. It was called the Sword of St. Paul; and the Domine dirige nos is an invocation that the magistracy may be taught to bear such sword like gentlemen and Christians. Is it because the prayer has been ineffectual that a new legend was constructed to account for the emblazoned weapon?
In the reign of Elizabeth there were two adjuncts which especially went to the making of a gallant—the ruff and the rapier. He whose ruff was the deepest and rapier the longest was the most unquestionable gallant; the consequence was, that apprentices robbed their masters in order to look like gallants. The vigorous Queen looked to it, however; and she placed grave citizens at the gates, with orders to cut off all ruffs of above a nail in depth, and break the points of all rapiers that were above a yard long. The scenes at the City gates must have been turbulent enough at those times, for it is not to be supposed that a “ruffian” would submit quietly to the cutting of his collar or the clipping of his sword.
In earlier times, in England, the sword and poniard too had something of sacredness attached to them: thus, when Athelstan was marching against the Danes and Scots, he paid a visit by the way to the shrine of St. John of Beverley. Upon the altar of the church there he deposited his poniard, vowing that if Heaven and the Saint would help him to a victory, he would redeem the arm at a suitable price. He gained the victory, and observed his vow; and for years the monks there blessed the good Athelstan for not only putting them above the law, but making them as rich as Crœsus. If he had not, they were men who would have taken their revenge; and they would not have scrupled, as the member of the Peace Society says in one of the comedies of Aristophanes, “to take his measure for a suit of Sardian scarlet,” or to have served his body as the heralds have the arms of the Duke of Buccleuch, which, as we all know, are “bruised by a baton sinister.”
The readers of Sterne will not need to be reminded that in ancient days in Brittany a nobleman, too poor to support his dignity, was allowed to make temporary sacrifice of the same by turning to commercial pursuits, after first surrendering his sword to the keeping of the magistracy. When fortune was achieved by honest industry, the old sword was once more hung upon the thigh. It was a wise custom, superior to that I have heard of in another country, where pauper aristocrats condescend to get rich by marrying merchants’ daughters, whose dowries they as profligately squander as though they had inherited them from their own fathers.
I have, in my ‘Table Traits,’ alluded to the use and abuse of the sword, and therefore will not repeat here incidents already related therein; I will merely remark that the best exemplification of the career of a mere swordsman is to be found in the history of fighting Fulwood, the lawyer. This hero, ever ready to draw his blade with or without reason, while standing (one night in the year of 1720), as was the custom of the pit, to see Mrs. Oldfield in ‘The Scornful Lady,’ remonstrated roughly with Beau Fielding for pushing against him. “Orlando the Fair” straightway clapped his hand to his sword; and the pugnacious lawyer, determined not to be behindhand, drew his blade, and passed it into the body of the Beau. While the latter, who was a mature gentleman of some half-century old, was exhibiting his wound, in order to excite the sympathy which he could not arouse in the breasts of the laughing ladies, Fulwood, flushed by victory, hastened to the playhouse in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he picked a quarrel with Captain Cusack, who was a better swordsman than Orlando and who stopped the lawyer’s triumphs by straightway slaying him.
The sword-clubs were suppressed by royal proclamation in 1724. They had been denounced as unlawful three years previously. The object of the proclamation was to banish from civilized society the sword itself, in order thereby to check the practice of duelling, which was, at that period, exercised exclusively by means of the sword. The law became stringent, and judges merciless upon this point. This was made sufficiently clear in 1726, when Major Oneby killed Mr. Gower in a duel with swords, fought in a tavern, after a dispute over a game at hazard. The adversaries had fought without witnesses, in a room the door of which was closed. The Major, who had been both the aggressor and the challenger, mortally wounded Mr. Gower, who however declared that he had fallen in fair combat. A jury, nevertheless, found Oneby guilty of murder; the judges acquiesced in the verdict, but the Major escaped public execution by committing suicide.
The law had not long to wait before other offenders were summoned for too freely using the sword. On a night in November, 1727, Savage the poet, with two companions, named Gregory and Merchant, entered a coffee-house near Charing-cross. Merchant insulted the company, a quarrel ensued, swords were drawn, and a Mr. Sinclair was slain by a thrust,—it is said, but not proved, from the sword of Savage. The result of the trial that followed is well known. The verdict of guilty of murder against Savage and Gregory, and of manslaughter against Merchant (who was the most culpable of the three), was exacted by a villanously partial judge, evidently under pressure of the proclamation against swords.
Merchant was at once burned in the hand in open court; he was also fined, compelled to give security for future good behaviour, and discharged. His associates had a narrow escape of an ignominious death, for which they were assiduously prepared by that Dr. Edward Young, who had not then achieved a reputation for ‘Night Thoughts,’ but who was establishing a reputation by the publication of those ‘Satires’ which so faithfully portray the social crimes and errors of the day.
Johnson’s Life of Savage does not notice Merchant’s sentence, nor does it state upon what terms Savage and Gregory obtained their liberty. They were liberated upon condition of their withdrawing to the Colonies for the space of three years, and giving security to keep the peace. The conditions appear to have been evaded. Gregory indeed did proceed to Antigua, where he obtained an appointment in the customs; but the wayward Savage sat down as a pensioner at the hearth of Lord Tyrconnell, whose benevolence, it is hardly necessary to add, he most shamefully abused.
I think that the last duel, certainly the last fatal duel, fought with swords, was between Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth, in January, 1762. They had quarrelled at the Star and Garter, Pall Mall, upon a question touching manors and game-preserves; they fought in a closed room of the tavern, and Mr. Chaworth was slain. The circumstances of the killing looked much more like murder than in the case of Major Oneby and Mr. Gower. The Peers, however, acquitted Lord Byron of the capital crime, but they found him guilty of manslaughter. His lordship claimed the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., and he was discharged on paying his fees. A bitter mockery of justice!
The sword appears to have been drawn in as hot wrath at the playhouse as in the park; and sometimes to have figured by way of ridicule. I may cite, as an example of the latter, an incident of the time of Charles II. The court was at Dover, whither the King had gone to receive his sister, and the mistress which that sister brought in her hand as a bribe whereby to make of Charles the enemy of his people! At this time, the French courtiers wore laced coats, of various colours, but all ridiculously short. The shortness of the front part was made up for by the breadth of the waistbelt. Nokes, the Keeley of his day, was dressed to play Sir Arthur Addle, in ‘Sir Solomon;’ and his costume, a caricature on the already sufficiently absurd dress of the French, so delighted the celebrated Duke of Monmouth, that the latter took his own sword and belt from his side, and buckled it with his own semi-royal hands about the person of the player. We should be somewhat startled in these days if we were to hear of Lord Augustus Fitzclarence fastening a cutlass upon the thigh of Mr. Keeley, when acting in the ‘Thirst for Gold:’ but in Charles’s days such freaks were very mildly construed of. The appearance of Nokes, in his short coat and long sword, elicited a roar from King and court, all the louder that the French originals were present. The latter must have taken our most religious and gracious King for a sorry barbarian; and, as chivalrous ideas went, it was very well that they did not surround Nokes as he was going home, and “pink” him into an everlasting incapability of ever caricaturing them again.
James II. was unquestionably more of a true gentleman in outward bearing than his brother Charles. I have an instance of this appropriate to this very subject of swords and actors. In the reign of James, an actor of unimpeachable character and of very refined manners, named Smith, had a discussion behind the scenes with a young nobleman, who, losing his temper with getting the worst of the argument, drew his sword and struck Smith,—for want of logic to confute him. The King forbade the courtier to appear in his presence; and by this means proclaimed his opinion that the nobleman was less of a gentleman than the player. But such a manifestation of opinion roused all the so-called gentlemen against the so-called vagabond players; and the next time Smith played they resorted to the theatre, sword in hand and catcall between their lips, and so plied both, that, despite the royal protection, he was driven from the stage for ever. Luckily for him, the “vagabond” was better off, on two points, than the “noble gentlemen,” his antagonists: he had a considerable fortune, and he was in debt to no man, not even to his tailor.
Smith’s story of the swords drawn against him, reminds me of Mrs. Verbruggen’s, with the sword always ready to leap from the scabbard to defend her. Mrs. Verbruggen was the Mrs. Sterling of her period,—that is, the cleverest of artificial actresses. It would be pertinent to my subject of ‘Habits’ to speak of her as she appeared in what is called “breeches parts;” but I am afraid if I were to describe her, as old Anthony Aston does, who so often saw and wondered, it would be considered very impertinent indeed. I may tell however what he says of her face. “It was of a fine smooth oval,” says Anthony, “full of beautiful and well-disposed moles, as were her neck and breast.” He afterwards adds:—“She was the best conversation possible,—never captious or displeased at anything but what was gross or indecent. For she was cautious, lest fiery Jack should so resent it as to breed a quarrel; for he would often say, ‘Damme! though I don’t much value my wife, yet nobody shall affront her;’ and his sword was drawn on the least occasion, which was much in fashion at the latter end of King William’s reign.”
It is a funny trait of the sword-wearers, that they could extol the virtue which they had ineffectually endeavoured to destroy. We see this in the case of Mrs. Bracegirdle, that Diana of the stage before whom Congreve and Lord Lovelace, at the head of a troop of bodkined fops, worshiped in vain. The noblest of the troop,—and it reckoned the Dukes of Devonshire and Dorset, the Earl of Halifax, and half-a-dozen delegates from each rank of the peerage among its members,—were wont, at the coffee-house, and over a bottle, to extol the Gibraltar-like virtue, if I may so speak, of this incomparable woman. “Come,” said Halifax, “you are always praising the virtue; why don’t you reward the lady who will not sell it? I propose a subscription, and there are two hundred guineas, pour encourager les autres.” Four times that amount was raised, and with it the nobles, with their swords in their hands, waited on Mrs. Bracegirdle, who accepted their testimonial, as it was intended in honour of her virtue. What should we think now if⸺? but this is a delicate matter, and I might make a mistake. I will only add, therefore, that had Mrs. Bracegirdle been rewarded for her charity, the recompense would have been, at least, as appropriate. For it is true of her that when the poor saw her they blessed her,—and, we may add, she richly merited the well-earned benedictions. She was, at all events, not quite so prudish as Mrs. Rogers, who not only objected to act any but virtuous characters, but made a public vow of chastity,—in an epilogue,—and broke it, out of good-nature.
It must be understood that the players wore swords in the streets, and used them, like gentlemen, for the destruction of one another. Thus Quin killed Will Bowen, in 1717. The former had declared that Ben Jonson acted Jacomo, in the ‘Libertine,’ better than Bowen. The latter pursued Quin to a tavern, shut the door of the room in which he found him, placed his back against the door, and threatened to pin Quin to the wainscot if he did not immediately draw. Quin remonstrated, but drew and kept on the defensive; while the impetuous Bowen so pressed upon his adversary that he actually fell upon that adversary’s sword and died, after acknowledging his own rashness. Quin was tried and acquitted.
The actors however had need to wear swords to defend themselves from their noble assailants. The latter used to crowd between the side-scenes, and often interrupt the performance by crossing the stage and conversing aloud with one another. On one occasion, at the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, an earl, who was said to have been drunk for six years continuously, was guilty of this rudeness; and Rich, enraged thereat, threatened never to allow him to be admitted again, whatever he might offer for it. The Peer replied by slapping Rich in the face; and Rich returned the salute with all the vigour and rapidity that belonged to him as an accomplished harlequin. The drunken lord’s drunken companions immediately drew, and solemnly devoted Rich to death. The comrades of the latter, headed by Ryan, the ex-tailor, whipped out their swords too (some of them wore them with their court suits in Macbeth), charged the nobles, and after a bloody mêlée drove them into the streets. The illustrious drunkards, brandishing their weapons, attacked the front of the house, fought their way into the boxes, proceeded to destroy the interior adornments, and would have set fire to the theatre but for the arrival of the “watch,” who captured the whole of the rioters. Justice was both lame and blind in those days, and the peers compromised the matter with the managers; but George I. was as much disgusted with the conduct of his “noble” subjects as a quiet scamp could be at the peccadilloes of noisy ones. The only men, not nobles, who were as great nuisances with their swords, were the Darby Captains. These were old “half-pays” or penniless “disbanded,” who used to pitch their tent at Derby’s Coffee-house in Covent-garden, and who were sanguinary in their cups. The “H. P.’s” who now meet in Ryder-street have little idea of the truculency of their predecessors, who most did congregate at the hostelrie whence they derived their name, and some pretenders their rank.
I have alluded to the proclamation against swords in 1724. It appears to have been made in vain, for in 1755 I find the aristocrats still ruling the theatre by power of naked weapons and impudence. Garrick received from them this questionable support when he brought out the ‘Chinese Festival,’ with Noverre and other foreign dancers from the neighbourhood of “Zurich’s fair waters.” A war with France had just broken out, and the mob were like Foote’s patriot gingerbread-maker in the Borough, who would not tolerate three dancers from Switzerland because he hated the French. The ochlocracy hissed; the aristocracy drew their swords to silence the villains; the latter welcomed the battle, and they not only damaged the theatre and many illustrious heads, but they pretty nearly destroyed Garrick’s own private residence. Roscius lost nearly £4000 in this quarrel, wherein swords were drawn and blood spilt that was of no value to the manager; and the present Mr. Noverre, of Norwich (I believe), can hardly make even a faint guess of the dire storm which greeted his great-grandsire when he first cut an entrechat on the boards of Old Drury.
But actors had bloody frays of their own, and that too among the gentler part of the profession. One I may mention, as it is connected with a matter of dress. The charming George Anne Bellamy had procured from Paris two gorgeous dresses, wherein to enact Statira in the ‘Rival Queens.’ Roxana was played by Peg Woffington; and she was so overcome with malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, when she saw herself eclipsed by the dazzling glories of the resplendent Bellamy, that Peg at length attempted to drive her off the stage, and with upheld dagger had wellnigh stabbed her at the side-scenes. Alexander and a posse of chiefs with hard names were at hand, but the less brilliantly-clad Roxana rolled Statira and her spangled sack in the dust, pommelling her the while with the handle of her dagger, and screaming aloud—
“Nor he, nor Heaven, shall shield thee from my justice;
Die, sorceress, die! and all my wrongs die with thee!”
Poor Madge! Not many weeks afterwards she was playing Rosalind, when she was, at the age of forty-four, struck with the fit that slowly conducted her to the grave. Her last words were, “If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me.” The stroke followed, then a scream, and she who had charmed multitudes was for ever charmless. I will only add here that it is said of O’Brien, of whom I have spoken elsewhere as having married an earl’s daughter, that “in the drawing of his sword he threw all other performers at a wonderful distance by his swiftness, grace, and superior elegance.” But O’Brien was the son of a fencing-master, and his brother actors were as jealous of him as Pepys of his friend Pen, as illustrated by the entry which says (May, 1662), “Walked with my wife to my brother Tom’s; our boy waiting on us with his sword, which this day he begins to wear, to outdo Sir W. Pen’s boy.” From which it would appear that gentlemen and footmen once had fashions, if not vices, in common; and that our ancestors, with regard to pride, were as great fools as ourselves; and that is eminently, nay, pre-eminently consoling.
The players were not scared from using swords as well as displaying them. When Garrick played Bayes in the ‘Rehearsal,’ in 1741-2, he gave imitations of Hall, Delaney, Ryan (the ex-tailor), Bridgewater, and of Gifford. The first four bore the ridicule better than Roscius would have endured the like of himself; but Gifford was so dreadfully enraged at the liberty taken with him that he sent Davy a challenge, and the two mimes fought until Gifford, whipping his rapier through the fleshy part of Garrick’s arm, laid him up for a fortnight, and cured him of mere mimicry.
I have noticed above how Peg Woffington, with her pointed dagger, punched the ribs of the exquisite Bellamy; a similar, but more disagreeable sort of excitement, once seized on Woodward, the old pupil of Merchant Tailors’, who had turned actor. He was playing Petruchio to Kitty Clive’s Catherine, when, borne away by his towering rage, he not only threw the lady down, but ran a fork into her finger; and as he had no love for Kitty, it is said that there was more design than accident in the matter. But this I do not believe. More credit, I fancy, is to be attached to the story which says, that when Pasta played Otello to Sontag’s Desdemona, the former was so excited by the superabundant applause gained by her rival, that in the killing scene Otello twisted a strong hand into Desdemona’s luxuriant hair, and gave it a series of such hearty tugs, that the gentle lady, married to the Moor, screamed with all her might, au naturel!
When the most pleasant and reasonable of Popes was Legate at Bologna, a circumstance connected with swords came under his observation. Two senators had fallen into a deadly quarrel touching the pre-eminence of Tasso and Ariosto. A duel ensued, in which the champion of Ariosto was mortally wounded. The future Pope visited the dying man, whose sole observation to his visitor’s religious injunctions was—“What an ass I am, to get run through the body in the very flower of my age, for the sake of Ariosto, of whom I have never read a line.” “But—” interrupted the priest. “And if,” exclaimed the dying man, not heeding the interruption, “if I had read him, I should not have understood him; for I am but a fool at the best of times.” Benedict himself had a respect for swordsmen; and it was said of him and that other pleasant fellow, his contemporary, the Sultan Mahmoud, that if they were made to change places, the Holy Father becoming Grand Seigneur, and the Sultan becoming Pope, nobody would be sensible of any consequent difference; except, perhaps, the most intimate portion of the Sultan’s household. Benedict was, at all events, wiser than that celebrated Capuchin, who, preaching repentance to a party about to resort to the arbitration of the sword, exclaimed, “Brethren, admire and bless Divine Providence, who has placed death at the close of life, in order that we might have the more time to be prepared for it.” This confusion of ideas reminds me of that which existed in the mind of the soldier who remarked, that people nowadays did not live to such a lengthened age as when he was young. “Not that there are not old people now,” said he, “but then they were born a very long time ago!”
Finally, let me conclude the subject of swords with something better worth remembering than mere gossip. Toledo, Damascus, and Milan have been especially renowned for the excellence of the swords manufactured in those respective places. The quality of the Spanish blade is said to have been given it by the cunning of Arab workmen; but the fact is, that Spanish blades were famous for their power of letting daylight into the soul’s tabernacle as early as the old Roman time. When the first Cæsar was master of the empire, Iberian tailors (and ladies) worked only with Toledo needles; while Iberian officers and gentlemen (for the characters were distinct in those heathen times: as for the matter of that, they sometimes are now) fought only with Toledo blades. Virgil alludes to the excellence of the Spanish steel in his first Georgic: “At Chalybes nudi ferrum (mittunt).” Justin says the Chalybes were Spaniards; and the nudi, no doubt, refers to the fashion in which they worked at the forge. Dryden translates the line—“And naked Spaniards temper steel for war.” Further, Diodorus Siculus states, “that the Celtiberians so tempered their steel, that no helmet could resist the stroke of the sword.”
The temper of the Damascus blade was of another sort. It was so fine that the sword passed through the lightest object floating in the air. The merits of the two methods will be found admirably illustrated in Scott’s story of ‘The Talisman.’
The English blade, I am sorry to say, has never been famous for excellence of temper. Some two centuries ago, an attempt was made to improve the home-manufactured sword, by incorporating a company of sword-cutlers for making hollow sword-blades, in Cumberland and the adjacent counties. The project failed, owing to the parsimony of the principals and the ignorance of the workmen. During the greater portion of the last century, our sword-blades were “regular bricks,” quite as blunt, but not half so dangerous. An English officer was as safe with one in his hand as if he had bought it at a toyshop; but he never met the enemy with a native-manufactured weapon. This state of things, and a mixed idea of profit and patriotism, fired Mr. Gill of Birmingham into experiments which became realities; and the English weapon was turned out as well calculated to help its wearer to cut through the sixth commandment as any foreign blade of them all.
A sword is only perfectly tempered at a heat of 550° Fahrenheit. The testing is by means of a process of bending and twisting almost torturing to read of. I only wish that all monarchs who unjustly draw the sword, were first subjected to the tempering and testing which the weapon itself undergoes. Could such a course have been applied to that miscreant Nicholas, what a relief it would have been to the world! An exposure, during ten minutes in an oven, to a heat of 550°, would have been followed by uncomplaining acquiescence on the part of the Czar; and there would not have been added to his account so many murders as those for which, as Heaven is just as well as merciful, he will be held responsible, at the tribunal which that gigantic criminal can not avoid.
The sword was grasped by hand, or mailed or gloved; and to the question of gloves we will now direct attention.