efficiatur, quod saepe contra accidit.”  But whosoever it be, this kind of fight taketh its warrant from law.  Nay, the French themselves, whence this folly seemeth chiefly to have flown, never had it but only in practice and toleration, and never as authorized by law; and yet now of late they have been fain to purge their folly with extreme rigor, in so much as many gentlemen left between death and life in the duels, as I spake before, were hastened to hanging with their wounds bleeding.  For the State found it had been neglected so long, as nothing could be thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it down.  As for the second defect, pretended in our law, that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, it may receive like answer.  It would have been thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers to have set a punishment upon the lie given, which in effect is but a word of denial, a negative of another’s saying.  Any lawgiver, if he had been asked the question, would have made Solon’s answer:  That he had not ordained any punishment for it, because he never imagined the world would have been so fantastical as to take it so highly.  The civilians dispute whether an action of injury lie for it, and rather resolve the contrary.  And Francis I. of France, who first set on and stamped this disgrace so deep, is taxed by the judgment of all wise writers for beginning the vanity of it; for it was he, that when he had himself given the lie and defy to the Emperor, to make it current in the world, said in a solemn assembly, “that he was no honest man that would bear the lie,” which was the fountain of this new learning.

As for the words of approach and contumely, whereof the lie was esteemed none, it is not credible, but that the orations themselves are extant, what extreme and exquisite reproaches were tossed up and down in the Senate of Rome and the places of assembly, and the like in Graecia, and yet no man took himself fouled by them, but took them but for breath, and the style of an enemy, and either despised them or returned them, but no blood was spilt about them.

So of every touch or light blow of the person, they are not in themselves considerable, save that they have got them upon the stamp of a disgrace, which maketh these light things pass for great matters.  The law of England and all laws hold these degrees of injury to the person, slander, battery, mayhem, death; and if there be extraordinary circumstances of despite and contumely, as in case of libels and bastinadoes and the like, this court taketh them in hand and punisheth them exemplarily.  But for this apprehension of a disgrace that a fillip to the person should be a mortal wound to the reputation, it were good that men did hearken unto the saying of Gonsalvo, the great and famous commander, that was wont to say a gentleman’s honor should be de tela crassiore, of a good strong warp or web, that every little thing should not catch in it; when as now it seems they are but of cobweb-lawn or such light stuff, which certainly is weakness, and not true greatness of mind, but like a sick man’s body, that is so tender that it feels everything.  And so much in maintenance and demonstration of the wisdom and justice of the law of the land.