The gallant, gay Mr. Berenger so politely smiled ever and anon, that it nearly amounted to a laugh. But this had been interdicted at the court where he too often had
----"listened, When the last Charles's beauties glistened In splendid robes of gaudy vice, And could with syren songs entice."
However the question, upon being put, was resolved in the negative, by the motion that the bill should be read that day six months! The Chancellor could make no peace between the enraged combatants, who adjourned to the robing-room, when this scene of altercation took place:—
Lord Mount-Leinster, addressing Bishop Rocket, emphatically said: "My Lord Bishop, you are now unharnessing yourself from that celestial panoply or armour in which you flourished in the House of Peers, and which, I must observe, you somewhat unseemingly, if not indecorously, called your "black rags,"
"Tutius est igitur fictis contendere verbis, Quam pugnare manu."
I have ever been, my Lord—mark me—a gallant swordsman; nor would I brook an affront from a king. Let not then your sacerdotal robes, or, as you were pleased in mirth to call them, your "black rags," let them not, I say, prove your peace-makers in this gross breach of decorum. I must observe, that, according to the spirit and strict laws of the Duello, or single combat, the ceremonies thereunto affixed and appertaining, connected and deducible from chivalry, are duly and implicitly laid down by the celebrated Caranza,[28] the oracle of duelling, and the no less sage and famous Master Selden, in his very learned and unimpeachable treatise upon the laws of the Duello; and in good sooth my very grave and reverend Lord Coke has it as a punctum in his Institutes, 'that in these matters, where the person possessing a right, or sustaining a grievance, could not act, on account of professional or personal disability, or perform the service required in person, he was then to name a sufficient person for his deputy!' Now, my Lord Bishop, I must needs observe, that I think that this was truly a marvellous right praiseworthy custom, that when any grave and reverend personage, willing to give satisfaction, as you profess, finds himself impeded by his reverend skirts tripping up the laws of the Duello, from being, for sad ensample, a son or dignitary of the Church, and so forth, that upon such occasions their next and nearest of kin should take up the gauntlet: and such a proxy, my Lord Bishop, I now claim from you to enter the lists with me, as becomes your true knight and representative!"
Bishop Rocket.—"Know then, Lord Mount-Leinster, that I shall send my sedan chairmen to fight you!!"
"A precious boon, and peerless proxies, I needs must say, my Lord Bishop, thou hast chosen!!! In sooth I oft have heard of knights of the lance and eke of the bucket,[29] but never until now heard of knights of the pole! But although, from your Lordship's reply, it appears that your next and nearest of kin happen to be your sedan-chairmen!! my own dignity prevents me having any further parley with you, much less contact with your kindred!" And then Lord Mount-Leinster, wheeling around, made his exit from the robing-room, flinging a rapid and most contemptuous look at the discomfitted bishop.
All peers and prelates, much diverted at the result, now withdrew. Solventur risu curiæ. The enemies of Bishop Rocket (who had certainly sprung from a low origin) insisted that his two sedan chairmen were his own proper kinsmen, and, moreover, bore his name. His friends did not deny the charge; but said, in extenuation, that "after all this was no wondrous thing, as the Marèschal de Richelieu, when at Vienna, had purchased baronies for his two portèurs de chaise; and when some ladies of fashion boasted that they had in their kitchen several French Marquises, 'I believe it,' replied the Marèschal, 'for my sedan chair is supported by a brace of German barons!'"
The eulogists of Lord Mount-Leinster loudly lauded him for the chivalrous spirit which he had manifested in this rencontre with the Church, which they considered and maintained as in no wise inferior to the adventure of the redoubted knight de la Mancha, when he encountered the windmill, and whose valour it was confessed was only to be paralleled with his discretion!