I really have acted in these cases with honesty, and am concerned it
should be thought otherwise: for wit, if a man had it, unless it be
directed to some useful end, is but a wanton frivolous quality; all that
one should value himself upon in this kind is, that he had some
honourable intention in it.

As for this point, never hero in romance was carried away with a more
furious ambition to conquer giants and tyrants, than I have been in
extirpating gamesters and duellists. And indeed, like one of those
knights too, though I was calm before, I am apt to fly out again, when
the thing that first disturbed me is presented to my imagination. I
shall therefore leave off when I am well, and fight with windmills no
more: only shall be so arrogant as to say of myself, that in spite of
all the force of fashion and prejudice, in the face of all the world, I
alone bewailed the condition of an English gentleman, whose fortune and
life are at this day precarious; while his estate is liable to the
demands of gamesters, through a false sense of justice; and to the
demands of duellists, through a false sense of honour. As to the first
of these orders of men, I have not one word more to say of them: as to
the latter, I shall conclude all I have more to offer against them (with
respect to their being prompted by the fear of shame) by applying to the
duellist what I think Dr. South says somewhere of the liar, "He is a
coward to man, and a brave to God."

_To_ Mr. Maynwaring.[52]

SIR,

The state of conversation and business in this town having been long
perplexed with pretenders in both kinds, in order to open men's eyes