paper, but fought against the last words of the censure.  I say Mr. Pitt, for indeed, like Almanzor, he fought almost singly, and spoke forty times:  the first time in the day with much wit, afterwards with little energy.  He had a tough enemy too; I don’t mean in parts or argument, but one that makes an excellent bulldog, the solicitor-general Norton.  Legge was, as usual, concise; and Charles Townshend, what is not usual, silent.  We sat till within a few minutes of two, after dividing again; we, our exact former number, 111; they, 273; and then we adjourned to go on the point of privilege the next day; but now

“Listen, lordings, and hold you still;
Of doughty deeds tell you I will.”

Martin,(349) in the debate, mentioned the North Briton, in which he himself had been so heavily abused; and he said, “whoever stabs a reputation in the dark, without setting his name, is a cowardly, malignant, and scandalous scoundrel.”  This, looking at Wilkes, he repeated twice, with such rage and violence, that he owned his passion obliged him to sit down.  Wilkes bore this with the same indifference as he did all that passed in the day.  The -House, too, who from Martin’s choosing to take a public opportunity of resentment, when he had so long declined any private notice, and after Wilkes’s courage was become so problematic, seemed to think there was no danger of such champions going further; but the next day, when we came into the House, the first thing we heard was that Martin had shot Wilkes:  so he had; but Wilkes has six lives still good.  It seems Wilkes had writ, to avow the paper, to Martin, on which the latter challenged him.  They went into Hyde-park about noon; Humphrey Coates, the wine-merchant, waiting in a postchaise to convey Wilkes away if triumphant.  They fired at the distance of fourteen yards:  both missed. then Martin fired and lodged a ball in the side of Wilkes; who was going to return it, but dropped his pistol.  He desired Martin to take care of securing himself, and assured him he would never say a word against him, and he allows that Martin behaved well.  The wound yesterday was thought little more than a flesh-wound, and he was in his old spirits.  To-day the account is worse, and he has been delirious:  so you will think when you hear what is to come.  I think, from the agitation his mind must be in, from his spirits, and from drinking, as I Suppose he will, that he probably will end here.  He puts me in mind of two lines of Hudibras,(350) which, by the arrangement of the words combined with Wilkes’s story, are stronger than Butler intended them:—­

“But he, that fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day.”

His adventures with Lord Talbot,(351) Forbes,(352) and Martin, make these lines history.