351. He yields not, etc. The MS. has "He stoops not, he, to James nor
Fate."
356. Carpet knight. Cf. Shakespeare, T. N. iii. 4. 257: "He is knight,
dubbed with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration."
364. Ruth. Pity; obsolete, though we still have ruthless. Cf. Spenser,
F. Q. i. 1. 50:
"to stirre up gentle ruth
Both for her noble blood, and for her tender youth;"
Milton, Lycidas, 163: "Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth,"
etc.
380. His targe. Scott says: "A round target of light wood, covered with
strong leather and studded with brass or iron, was a necessary part of
a Highlander's equipment. In charging regular troops they received the
thrust of the bayonet in this buckler, twisted it aside, and used the
broadsword against the encumbered soldier. In the civil war of 1745
most of the front rank of the clans were thus armed; and Captain Grose
(Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 164) informs us that in 1747 the
privates of the 42d regiment, then in Flanders, were for the most part
permitted to carry targets. A person thus armed had a considerable
advantage in private fray. Among verses between Swift and Sheridan,
lately published by Dr. Barrett, there is an account of such an
encounter, in which the circumstances, and consequently the relative
superiority of the combatants, are precisely the reverse of those in the
text:
'A Highlander once fought a Frenchman at Margate,
The weapons, a rapier, a backsword, and target;
Brisk Monsieur advanced as fast as he could,
But all his fine pushes were caught in the wood,
And Sawny, with backsword, did slash him and nick him,
While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him,
Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore,
Me will fight you, be gar! if you'll come from your door."'"
383. Trained abroad. That is, in France. See on i. 163 above. Scott says
here: "The use of defensive armor, and particularly of the buckler,
or target, was general in Queen Elizabeth's time, although that of the
single rapier seems to have been occasionally practised much earlier
(see Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 61). Rowland
Yorke, however, who betrayed the fort of Zutphen to the Spaniards, for
which good service he was afterwards poisoned by them, is said to have
been the first who brought the rapier-fight into general use. Fuller,
speaking of the swash-bucklers, or bullies, of Queen Elizabeth's time,
says, 'West Smithfield was formerly called Ruffian's Hall, where such
men usually met, casually or otherwise, to try masteries with sword
or buckler. More were frightened than hurt, more hurt than killed
therewith, it being accounted unmanly to strike beneath the knee. But
since that desperate traitor Rowland Yorke first introduced thrusting
with rapiers, sword and buckler are disused.' In The Two Angry Women
of Abingdon, a comedy, printed in 1599, we have a pathetic complaint:
'Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it;
I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking
fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man and a good
sword and buckler man will be spitted like a cat or rabbit.' But the
rapier had upon the Continent long superseded, in private duel, the use
of sword and shield. The masters of the noble science of defence were
chiefly Italians. They made great mystery of their art and mode of
instruction, never suffered any person to be present but the scholar who
was to be taught, and even examined closets, beds, and other places
of possible concealment. Their lessons often gave the most treacherous
advantages; for the challenged, having the right to choose his weapons,
frequently selected some strange, unusual, and inconvenient kind of
arms, the use of which he practised under these instructors, and thus
killed at his ease his antagonist, to whom it was presented for the
first time on the field of battle. See Brantome's Discourse on Duels,
and the work on the same subject, 'si gentement ecrit,' by the venerable
Dr. Paris de Puteo. The Highlanders continued to use broadsword and
target until disarmed after the affair of 1745-6."
385. Ward. Posture of defence; a technical term in fencing. Cf.
Falstaff's "Thou knowest my old ward" (1 Hen. IV. ii. 4. 215), etc.