twelve years back, which hath been recounted already, and in which Mohun performed his second murder.  They rushed in, and closed upon each other at once without any feints or crossing of swords even, and stabbed one at the other desperately, each receiving many wounds; and Mohun having his death-wound, and my Lord Duke lying by him, Macartney came up and stabbed his Grace as he lay on the ground, and gave him the blow of which he died.  Colonel Macartney denied this, of which the horror and indignation of the whole kingdom would nevertheless have him guilty, and fled the country, whither he never returned.

What was the real cause of the Duke Hamilton’s death?—­a paltry quarrel that might easily have been made up, and with a ruffian so low, base, profligate, and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders, that a man of such renown and princely rank as my Lord Duke might have disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain.  But his spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him.  The Queen’s ambassador to Paris died, the loyal and devoted servant of the House of Stuart, and a Royal Prince of Scotland himself, and carrying the confidence, the repentance of Queen Anne along with his own open devotion, and the good-will of millions in the country more, to the Queen’s exiled brother and sovereign.

That party to which Lord Mohun belonged had the benefit of his service, and now were well rid of such a ruffian.  He, and Meredith, and Macartney, were the Duke of Marlborough’s men; and the two colonels had been broke but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories.  His Grace was a Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince Eugene himself.  I say not that he was privy to Duke Hamilton’s death, I say that his party profited by it; and that three desperate and bloody instruments were found to effect that murder.

As Esmond and the Dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart, the street-criers were already out with their broadsides, shouting through the town the full, true, and horrible account of the death of Lord Mohun and Duke Hamilton in a duel.  A fellow had got to Kensington, and was crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr. Esmond happened to pass by.  He drove the man from under Beatrix’s very window, whereof the casement had been set open.  The sun was shining though ’twas November:  he had seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard relieved at the palace, the laborers trudging to their work in the gardens between Kensington and the City—­the wandering merchants and hawkers filling the air with their cries.  The world was going to its business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them; and kings, very likely, lost their chances.  So night and day pass away, and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not.  Esmond thought of the courier, now galloping on the North road to inform him, who was Earl of Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart, beating a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent.