The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pugilistica Volume One, by Henry Downes Miles

60. As a matter incidental to the history of pugilism, we cannot omit a short notice of Colonel Aston. The story has a spice of romance, and “points a moral” in favour of the principles we are advocating. We copy the “News from India” in the World for 1799. “Colonel Aston being for a short time absent from his regiment, a misunderstanding occurred between Major Picton ^[171] and Major Allan with a lieutenant. Immediately on the return of the colonel, he was made acquainted with the affair, and wrote his opinion, in a private letter, that the behaviour of the two majors was somewhat ‘illiberal’ to their subaltern officer. The letter being shown, Majors P. and A. demanded a Court of Inquiry, which was refused by the commander-in-chief, as calculated to destroy ‘that harmony among officers so essential to the support of discipline in regiments on foreign duty.’ Major Picton now called upon Colonel Aston to demand an explanation of the term ‘illiberal.’ Colonel Aston ‘did not think himself bound to account for his conduct in discharge of his duty as Colonel to any inferior officer; but if Major Picton had anything to reproach him with, as a private gentleman, he was prepared to give him any satisfaction in his power.’ This brought it into the domain of a private quarrel (!), and the next day they met by appointment, accompanied by their seconds. Major Picton had the first fire: his pistol snapped, which was declared equal to a fire by the seconds. Colonel Aston immediately fired in the air, declaring he had no quarrel with the major.” Would not a rational man think this punctilious foolery was settled; but no! We continue our quotation. “Notwithstanding the kindly manner in which this affair had been apparently settled, to the reciprocal satisfaction of the code of the duello, Major Allan the next day demanded satisfaction for the private opinion expressed by the colonel of his conduct. A similar answer was returned, that the colonel denied his right to call upon him to explain any act of his official duty; that he was at all times ready to vindicate his private conduct, but at the same time was unconscious of having offended Major A. The latter, however, assumed a tone of vehemence and authority, which rendered the meeting on the part of the colonel unavoidable. Major Allan fired the first shot—the seconds did not perceive the ball had taken effect. The colonel, having received the fire, appeared unhurt, stood erect, and with the greatest composure levelled his pistol with a steady hand, shewing he had power to fire on his antagonist. He then leisurely drew it back, and laying it across his breast, said, ‘I am shot through the body; I believe the wound is mortal, and therefore decline returning the fire: for it never shall be said that the last act of my life was dictated by a spirit of revenge.’ He sat down on the ground, was carried home, where he languished in excessive agony for several days, and without a murmur expired.

“Colonel Harvey Aston was brother to the pretty Mrs. Hodges, well known in the sporting world. He married Miss Ingram, the daughter of Lady Irwin, and sister to the Marchioness of Hertford, Lady William Gordon, Lady Ramsden, and Mrs. Meynell, whom he left with a young family to deplore this melancholy accident.” The chivalrous honour, manly forbearance, and moderation of this staunch patron of pugilism shines through every phase of this deplorable case of manslaughter. We call things by their right names.

61. Fewterel is said by Mr. Vincent Dowling, in his obituary notice of John Jackson, to have been a Scotchman; we think it probable from what we here give.

The only other contest of Fewterel’s, worth preserving, is his battle with a Highlander, on the Leith Ground, Edinburgh, March 23, 1793. The Highlander, whose calling was that of an Edinburgh chairman, was reputed a phenomenon among his brethren of the Scottish capital.

“Fewterel, when stripped, appeared very corpulent, and by no means in the condition in which he fought Jackson. The Highlander was by far the finer and stronger man, and was reported to possess wonderful readiness and courage. They set-to at about eight o’clock in the morning, and the first knock-down blow was given by Fewterel, who sent his antagonist a surprising distance, there being no roped enclosure. The next round he also brought down the Scot by a severe blow in the chest. In the next round the Highlander got in a well-hit stroke under Fewterel’s right eye, which cut him severely. He, however, stood firm, and kept cool. The next blow Fewterel got in, he again brought him down, and this so enraged the Highlander, that during the remainder of the contest he never recovered his temper. This gave Fewterel a decided advantage, and though he afterwards received many severe blows, he constantly reduced the strength of his antagonist. At length he put in a hit under the Highlander’s jaw that laid him senseless on the grass. Thus terminated the contest, after thirty-five minutes. The Scot soon, however, recovered, but was unable to walk home. The match was 50 guineas to 30 guineas. The odds were given to Fewterel, who generously gave the man he had beaten 10 guineas, the sum he (Fewterel) was promised if he won the battle.”—“Pancratia,” pp. 111, 112.

62. “The second boxing match was between Elisha Crabbe, the Jew, who beat Death (see ante) and Watson of Bristol; won by the latter. The third between two outsiders.”

63. That the everyday use and familiar handling of deadly weapons lead to their reckless use, we may quote a few recent instances from the history of our descendants in America. The horrible assassination of the great and good President Abraham Lincoln, and the ferocious use of a “billy” and a bowie-knife upon the helpless and prostrate Mr. Secretary Seward, his son, Major Frederick Seward, and an attendant, are offsprings of a familiarity with daily outrages by lethal weapons, and the general resort to them to redress injury or resent insult. The death of the assassin Booth is the culmination.

64. Eheu fugaces anni—not only have the men departed, but their local habitations have vanished. The spacious hotel, once Wallace’s, now the Alexandra, and palatial mansions, cover the ground extending from Hyde Park Corner (on the side of St. George’s Hospital), towards St. Paul’s new Puseyite pinnacles at Knightsbridge. Even “the Corner” itself—the world-famed “Tattersall’s” has migrated. It will be known only to the remainder of the present, and the next rising generation, as the splendid club-room and spacious horse-mart at the junction of the Brompton and Kensington Roads.

65. About 1790, Lord Barrymore was in the hey-day of his riot and “larkery” at Brighton, where the Prince of Wales had just finished that grotesque kiosk known as the Pavilion, once the scene of royal orgies, now a cockney show-shop of London super mare. The Lord Barrymore, who was Hooper’s patron, was the head of the family firm nicknamed Newgate, Hellgate, and Cripplegate, from colloquial, acquired, or personal peculiarities. On hearing these elegant sobriquets, the Prince is said to have objected to the omission of the lady sister of the trio from this nomenclature, and ungallantly suggested the name of “Billingsgate,” as a fourth of the family.

One anecdote is too characteristic of the actors to be lost. “In one of his wild freaks, his Lordship, from his lofty phaeton, struck with his driving whip a Mr. Donadieu, a respectable perfumer of Brighton, who was driving in his gig, for not getting quickly enough out of his impetuous Lordship’s way. Mr. Donadieu drove after him, but his lordship’s terrible high-bred cattle soon distanced him. The next morning Mr. D., perceiving Lord Barrymore upon the Steyne, in company with several sporting men, went up to him and remonstrated upon the ungentlemanly usage he had experienced the previous day. His Lordship replied insultingly, and struck the perfumer. The tradesman was an Englishman, and at once returned the blow. A smart rally convinced the eccentric peer that his credit as a boxer was at stake, for his resolute opponent drove him before his attack. Lord Barrymore tried to take an unfair advantage, when the Prince of Wales, who had witnessed the whole fracas from a window of the Pavilion, called out in a loud voice, ‘D——e, Barrymore, fight like a man!’” In the Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley’s volumes, “My Life and Recollections” (London, Hurst and Blackett, 1865), vol. i., pp. 49–78, is a curious sketch of Brighton at the close of the 18th century, with anecdotes of Colonel Hanger, Lord Barrymore, John Jackson, etc., and the ladies whom the heir apparent delighted to honour. The specimen of the Prince’s style, in the anecdote of the Royal Harriers, pp. 70, 71, will show that the “first gentleman of Europe” was facile princeps in the then fashionable accomplishment of swearing. Grantley Berkeley makes a slip in the closing lines of his notice of Lord Barrymore, which it may be worth while to correct. He says: “A rapid career of reckless extravagance was brought to a sudden close whilst marching with a detachment towards Dover: the musket of one of his men went off, eventually causing his (Lord Barrymore’s) death.” We must acquit the Berkshire militia of this charge of clumsy or intentional homicide. We extract from the memoir of a contemporary: “Lord Barrymore was a lieutenant of the Berkshire militia stationed at Rye, and was marching a party of French prisoners to Deal. They marched through Folkestone to the top of the succeeding hill, and halted at a small public-house to refresh his men and the prisoners. Admiral Macbride and General Smith met his lordship there; he was in high spirits, and accepted an invitation to dine with them at Deal. Lord Barrymore had marched at the head of his party from Rye; he now ordered his valet-de-chambre, who drove his curricle in the rear, to procure him a pipe of tobacco, saying, ‘I’ll ride and smoke while you drive.’ He was in high glee, counted up the score with chalk on a slate, à la Boniface; imitated Hob, from ‘Hob in the Well,’ a farce he was very partial to; treated all about him; gave the landlady a kiss, and leaped into the curricle. He gave the fusil to his servant, who placed it carelessly between his legs and drove off. They had scarcely proceeded fifty yards when the piece went off. The contents entered his lordship’s right cheek, forced out the eye, and lodged in the brain: he was pointing to the coast of France at the moment. He lived forty minutes, groaning heavily, but never spoke again. The fusil was loaded with swan shot; he had been killing gulls and rabbits on his way from Rye to Folkestone. An inquest was held on the 8th of March, the verdict ‘Accidental Death.’ He was interred on Sunday, March 17, 1793, in the chancel of the church at Wargrave.”

66. In “Fistiana,” Wright is, by a slip, called “Lord Barrymore’s man.” Cotterel’s fight is also omitted under Hooper.

67. This battle does not appear under Hooper’s name in “Fistiana.”

68. There not being time for the second contest between Stanyard, of Birmingham, and Andrew Gamble, the Irish champion, it was postponed to the next day. See Gamble, in Appendix to Period II.

69. Maddox will find his place under Cribb’s period. His first fight was in 1792, his last with Bill Richmond in 1809.

70. See Wood’s memoir, Appendix to Period II., post.

71. “Fistiana” misprints it sixteen minutes.

72. A memoir of this well-known boniface, whose memory yet lives with old ring-goers, (he died at his house at Plumstead, Kent, in 1843), will be found in its chronological order.

73. “The Historian” inflicts a second thrashing by his hero and pal “Ould Tom Owen” on poor Hooper, ten weeks afterwards, at the same place, under similar circumstances. We suspect “Ould Tom,” as Pierce Egan calls him, who had a lively imagination, to say the least, must have narrated a dream to his “philosopher and friend.”

74. These exceptional events are out of ring chronology, properly speaking. Owen and his opponent, old Dan Mendoza, belonged, as pugilists, to a previous generation.

75. There was a boxer at this period, Bill Jones, who fought Dunn, Tom Tyne, and Bob Watson, who has been confounded with Paddington Jones.

76. See Life of Jem Belcher in Period III.

77. “Boxiana” and “Fistiana” date this fight in June. January is the correct date; see “Pancratia,” p. 123, and the Daily Advertiser of the date.

78. “Boxiana” confounds him with Tom (Paddington) Jones.

79. Though Anderson was not, or pretended not to be, good enough for Watson, Lord Barrymore, who saw the fight, matched him for 50 guineas against Tom Tight, an Oxford bargee. They fought on Wargner Green, Berks, January 4, 1790, when Anderson knocked the bargeman almost out of time in the third round, six minutes only having elapsed.

80. See Life of Gully, post.

81. Cullington was a sporting publican, landlord of the Black Bull, in Tottenham Court Road, a personal friend and backer of Jem Belcher, then called “The Bristol Youth.”

82. Pierce Egan says, “a man of the name of Bourke, a butcher.” Much confusion has been occasioned by the absurd penchant of “the historian” (as Pierce was wont to style himself) to Hibernicise and appropriate to Ireland the names and deeds of fistic heroes. Teste his twist of “the Streatham Youth” into O’Neale, his ludicrous magniloquence in the case of several Irish roughs in “Boxiana,” on whom he has expended his slang panegyric (see Corcoran, Gamble, Hatton, O’Donnell, etc.), and his thousand and one claims of “Irish descent” for most of his heroes. Joe Berks (spelt Bourke or Burke in “Boxiana” and “Fistiana”) was a native of Wem, in Shropshire. He was a powerful heavy made man, a little short of six feet high, and weighing fourteen stone. His career was unfortunate, from being pitted against such phenomena of skill as Jem Belcher and Henry Pearce, for his game and strength were unimpeachable. From “Pancratia,” p. 126, under date of September, 18, 1797, we learn that Joe Berks was a cooper, and that at that date he fought one Christian, a shoemaker, and much fancied as a boxer by the sons of Crispin, a severe battle in Hyde Park. The contest lasted fifty-five minutes, during which there were twenty-two rounds of hard boxing. Berks, despite a wrangle for a “foul,” was declared the conqueror. Berks’ subsequent pugilistic career will be read in the memoirs of his conqueror. His successive defeats by Belcher, Pearce, and Deplige, and his violent temper, lost his patrons, and he sunk into poverty. A dishonest act, under the influence, as it was urged in his defence, of liquor, led to his imprisonment. Here one firm friend of the unfortunate stepped forward, John Jackson, who, by petition, procured his liberation. Berks enlisted, and when his kind benefactor last heard of him he held the position of non-commissioned officer in the Grenadier company of a regiment serving under the Duke of Wellington (Sir Arthur Wellesley) in Spain.

83. Alluding to the treaty of Amiens with Napoleon I., the preliminaries of which were signed October 1, 1801.

84. The old city house of detention and correction was so called; its successor, the “Giltspur Street Compter,” is now also demolished, and its prisoners sent to Holloway.

85. These are the exact words of the original report.

86. Another of the hors d’œuvres of a casual turn-up. Tom’s last battle, properly speaking, was in 1813, with Dogherty, see post, p. 160.

87. A silly exaggeration of the “Aquila non gignunt columbæ.” We know eagles don’t beget doves, or the reverse; but though a healthy or unhealthy constitution may be transmitted, neither poets, philosophers, preachers, or pugilists, are begotten hereditarily.

88. “Son of the renowned Michael Ryan,” says Pierce Egan, who devotes to him a biography. Michael’s “renown” consisted in being twice beaten by Tom Johnson, which was no disgrace, and then by Mike Brady, an Irish rough, in twenty minutes, which was. Bill, who was a drunken Irish braggadocio, after winning his first fight with Belcher, wrangled a battle with Caleb Baldwin (see Baldwin), and beat Clarke, June 17, 1806.

89. See Appendix to Period IV.

90. Pearce was in his twenty-sixth year, and the senior of Belcher by nearly five years; but his constitution was undebauched, and his fame matured. Belcher began his fighting career at seventeen years with Britton, two or three years too early.

91. Isaac Bittoon had beaten Tom Jones, and made a draw with George Maddox, and at this time was in good repute as a boxer. See Appendix.

92. It may be as well here to note that wherever practicable, the best contemporary report has been used of these earlier fights, which will account for discrepancies between some of them and the embellished accounts in “Boxiana.”

93. He was born August 21, 1783, at Bristol.

94. A bit of slang for the King’s Bench Prison, afterwards called Abbott’s Priory, Tenterden Park, Denman’s Priory, etc., from successive C. J.’s of the K. B. It is now abolished, and its site a barrack.

95. This would now lose the fight.—Ed.

96. Gin. The name of a celebrated distiller (Sir John Liptrap) at Whitechapel. As “Hodges” is now sometimes used for the same spirituous “blue ruin.”

97. Successively in the occupation of Ned Baldwin, Young Dutch Sam, Johnny Hannan, and the late Ben Caunt.

98. This is the contemporary report. That in “Boxiana,” and copied into “Fights for the Championship,” is a re-written version.

99. From the contemporary report. A perusal of merely the first round in “Boxiana,” or its copyists, will show the unfaithfulness of the vamped reproduction in these cases.

100. Bell’s Weekly Dispatch, May 14, 1808.

101. See Cropley, Appendix to Period III.

102. There is some obscurity about this, as to whether the fight with Tom Jones, July 13, 1801, is attributable to Dutch Sam, or to Isaac Bittoon. (See Bittoon.) “Boxiana,” “Fistiana,” etc., give it to Bittoon, we suspect erroneously; for we find in a contemporary newspaper the following:—“Monday, July 13, 1801.—A boxing match was fought on Wimbledon Common, between Elias, a Jew, and Tom Jones. In the first twenty minutes Tom evidently had the advantage, and during this time great sport was afforded to the amateurs by the science displayed. Elias, however, put in a hit so forcibly behind Tom’s ear, that Tom immediately fell, and gave up the contest.” And see “Pancratia,” p. 136, where the battle is given in chronological order under this date.

103. See Baldwin (Caleb), Appendix to Period III.

104. This is the first distinct notice we find of administering the “upper-cut;” the most effective blow in a rally, most difficult to guard against, yet so generally missed by the less-skilled boxer. The “chopper,” or downward blow, of which our forefathers talked, can only be administered to an incapable off his guard, or a “chopping-block.”—Ed.

105. “Pancratia,” p. 237.

106. “Boxiana” (vol. i., p. 323), and the Chronologies, say at “Moulsey Hurst.” This is from the contemporary account.

107. As in the interval between these two battles, Mr. Fletcher Reid, a great patron and backer of the Belchers, paid the “debt of nature,” this seems the right place for a brief obituary notice which we find in the journals:—“On Thursday morning, January the 24th (1807), died, at Shepperton, Surrey, where he had resided for the last two years, Mr. Fletcher Reid, well-known in the sporting world, particularly as one of the greatest patrons of gymnastic genius. The evening preceding he had spent jovially amongst some select companions, and retired to rest at rather a late hour. In the morning his servant found him dead. Mr. Fletcher Reid was a native of Dundee, in Scotland, near to which he had succeeded to estates, by the death of his mother, which afflicting intelligence he had received only two days previous to his decease. He left a wife and two children, who for some time past had resided with his mother.” The following lines, rather questionable in taste, appeared in a monthly publication some time afterwards:—

“In the still of the night, Death to Shepperton went,
And there catching poor Fletcher asleep,
He into his wind such a finisher sent,
That no longer ‘the time’ could he keep.

“Thus forced to give in, we his fate must lament,
While the coward, grim Death, we must blame,
For if in the morn he to Shepperton went,
He feared Fletcher’s true science and game.

“Then repose to his ashes, soft rest to his soul,
For harmless was he through life’s span,
With the friend of his bosom, enjoying the bowl,
And wishing no evil to man.”

“February, 1807.”

108. “Recollections of an Octogenarian,” 8vo., London, 1812.

109. Pierce Egan says, “Seabrook was so completely frightened out of all his conceit, that he almost bolted from the spot.” What that may mean we cannot explain.

110. Coady’s other exploit was being beaten by Bill Treadway, in twenty-seven minutes March 16, 1798, in Hyde Park.

111. This is what modern reporters would call “forcing the fighting.”

112. This decision is utterly at variance with the rules of the ring. The cool non-sequitur of the reporter that, as Coady refused to appear, the battle was declared a drawn one, is not the least amusing incident. Mr. Vincent Dowling has booked it as a victory to Maddox, which it undoubtedly was. See “Fistiana,” voce, Maddox.

113. The memoir of Caleb Baldwin in “Boxiana,” vol. i., pp. 301–314, omits all mention of this fight.

114. Copied in “Pancratia,” p. 136, from the Oracle newspaper. This battle is also overlooked by “the historian,” in his life of Caleb.

115. Jack Lee was then thought a rising pugilist; his previous battle was a draw with Solly Sodicky, a Jew. He must not be confounded with Harry Lee, who was beaten by Mendoza.

116. In the travels of Pallas in Tartary, he describes himself, after a weary sledge journey through snowy steppes, as coming in sight of the corpse of a malefactor swinging on a gaunt black gibbet as a warning to “land pirates.” He congratulates himself on this mark of having arrived on the “confines of civilization.”

117. Blows in the short ribs are so called by the older ring reporters.—Ed.

118. Stephenson had been beaten by Jack Carter. (See Carter, Period IV.) Robinson was an old stager, fourteen stone weight; his fights, not worth detailing, are chronicled in “Fistiana.”

119. Massa Bristow seems here to have fought his best fight; despite the tuition of Richmond and his Fives Court practice, he merely beat an unknown (Little Tom) for 20 guineas in a clumsy fight at Holloway, July 19, 1817, and was then thrashed by a fourth-rate pugilist, Pug M’Gee, at Shepperton Range, September 30, 1817, in sixty-five minutes, 40 rounds.

120. This proved to be the afterwards renowned Jack Randall.

121. Ben Stanyard, who is stated to have been the victor in seventeen battles in the midland and western counties, does not figure in the chronologies; this draw and his defeat by Bill Warr (see Warr), October 26, 1792, are all that appear to his name.

122. Noah James, a discharged trooper, appears to have been a bruiser of Gamble’s own stamp. He is stated in “Fistiana” to have beaten Smith at Navestock, December 31, 1788, and Solly Sodicky, the Jew (a cross), at Hornchurch, Essex, February 13, 1793; but these battles were fought by one James, a waterman. See “Pancratia,” pp. 82 and 111. There was also a Joe James, beaten by Faulkner, the cricketer. (See Faulkner, ante.)

123. In “Fistiana,” under O’Donnell, Harry Holt is stated to have defeated him in 1817. It was another boxer of the same name, said to be a relative of the subject of our sketch.

124. The account in “Boxiana” deserves transferring, as a model of accuracy and diction:—

“O’Donnell, the celebrated Irish hero, fought Tom Belcher for a subscription purse of 20 guineas, at Shepperton Common, Surrey. Considerable science was displayed by Belcher upon this occasion; and O’Donnell showed himself also entitled to respectable attention; but who was completely satisfied in fifteen rounds, when Belcher was proclaimed the conqueror.”

125. The paragraph runs thus in the papers of the day:—“July 13 (1801). A boxing match was fought on Wimbledon Common, between Elias, a Jew, and Tom Jones. For the first twenty minutes Tom evidently had the advantage, and during this time great sport had been afforded by the excellent science displayed on both sides. Elias, however, put in a hit so forcibly behind Tom’s ear, that he immediately fell and gave up the contest.” And see “Pancratia,” p. 144., where the paragraph is reprinted. The Elias was, doubtless, Dutch Sam.

126. Bittoon’s name is spelt with a P (Pittoon) in the contemporary reports.

127. See Tom Tough (Blake), in this Appendix.

128. The battle would have been over, and Bittoon the victor, with a modern referee.—Ed.

129. The site of the present Harley Street, Oxford Street. The report states the spot differently. “On Tuesday morning, February the 18th [1794], a battle was fought between Jack Holmes, the hackney coachman, and a manufacturer of à-la-mode beef, in a field behind Gower Street, Bedford Square. After four or five tolerably good rounds, the contest was put an end to by the cry of a foul blow. The seconds chose an umpire, Captain Hamilton, who, greatly to the disappointment of the kiddies who lacked more fun, decided it in favour of the beef-eater. This very much discomfited the son of Jehu, who certainly had held the whip-hand over his antagonist the whole time, and he voluntarily offered to renew the battle for another guinea, but his opponent declined.”

130. As “Boxiana” is scarce and out of print, a specimen of the inflated bombast of its author may be amusing. The memoir of Gregson (who occupies six lines in the Chronologies), all his recorded fights having been defeats, is thus headed and introduced, with a profusion of capital letters:—

“BOB GREGSON, P.P.,

One of the most distinguished Champions of Lancashire,

and

POET LAUREATE

TO THE HEROIC RACE OF PUGILISTS.

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dare do more, is none.

“In recording the most prominent traits of the celebrated pugilists, from the earliest professors of the gymnastic art down to the present milling æra, when passing in review, ‘Boxiana’ has found none more entitled to peculiar attention than the hero of the present sketch.” Said sketch then starts off from Fig, glances at Broughton, George Taylor, Slack, the ‘prodigies of valour performed by Corcoran as a bruiser;’ and refers to Humphries, Mendoza, Bill Warr, Hooper, Jackson, Pearce, the Belchers, and Berks. Gully, Cribb, and Molineaux too are dragged in as foils to Bob Gregson! The proëmium thus concludes:—“But, notwithstanding the above variety of qualifications, it has been reserved for Bob Gregson alone, from his union of pugilism and poetry, to recount the deeds of his brethren of the fist in heroic verse (like the bards of old, in sounding the praises of their warlike champions), whose pretensions to the former are beyond all dispute, and respecting the latter, one of the most distinguished works of sporting celebrity has given place to the poetic effusions of his muse.”

131. To many who have not the opportunity of perusing the writings of “the author of Boxiana,” as he was wont to call himself, this criticism may appear unduly harsh: this imputation we should be sorry to lie under. While writing these pages, two well filled volumes have been published by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley, entitled “My Life and Recollections,” embracing reminiscences of the first half of the present century, and of persons and events in society. The writer is happy to have so thoroughly competent a confirmation of his condemnation. He may premise also, that the very argot of which Pierce Egan proclaimed himself a professor was not radically English, but the low slang of Irish ruffianism. Mr. Grantley Berkeley says (vol. i., pp. 107, 108):—“The extravagances and absurdities of ‘Tom and Jerry’ were brought into vogue by a low-caste Irishman, known as Pierce Egan, sometimes a newspaper reporter [only in his later day] of fights, etc., and sometimes a low comedian in third-rate Dublin and London theatres. [He was a compositor in Smeeton’s printing office in St. Martin’s Lane.] His ‘Life in London’ was very popular, and he dramatised it at the Adelphi [this was done by Billy Moncrieff] with marked success. He brought out a similar play in the Irish capital, called ‘Life in Dublin,’ and a third in the flourishing commercial port on the Mersey, called ‘Life in Liverpool.’ His ‘Boxiana’ was considered as a text-book on fights and fighting men; and his elaborate and exaggerated descriptions of ‘a mill,’ as prize-fights were designated, were stuffed full of slang, the delight of a large circle of male readers. He assisted in starting a sporting newspaper, the still flourishing Bell’s Life in London [this is totally wrong], and subsequently an opposition one, with a similar title. It failed, and he long outlived his reputation as an author, for he was totally destitute of literary invention: the characters in his stories were thoroughly conventional, and his style never rose above that of an ordinary penny-a-liner. He was a coarse-looking man, who seemed only to have associated with the very lowest society in England and Ireland. Indeed, he used to make boast of his familiarity with the riff-raff of both capitals. The intense vulgarity of his writings grew distasteful; and though he produced several works of imagination, all have sunk into oblivion. Indeed they predeceased their author a good many years. He died totally forgotten by his once innumerable patrons, and the literature of the ring died with him.” The last phrase rounds a period; but a second thought would have told Mr. Berkeley that the really good ring reports which, from about 1824 to a late period, at intervals filled the columns of the Morning Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, the Weekly Dispatch, and other papers, were none of them from the coarse and illiterate pen of “the historian,” but from those of George Kent, Mr. G. Daniels; and principally from those of Mr. Smith, Mr. V. G. Dowling, the writer of this work, and other qualified reporters. Whether the ring itself is dead is another question, which we may now answer in the affirmative with Mr. Grantley Berkeley.