of old England! but they, too, have had their day—­for everything beneath the sun there is a season and a time.  But the greater number come just as they can contrive; on the tops of coaches, for example; and amongst these there are fellows with dark sallow faces and sharp shining eyes; and it is these that have planted rottenness in the core of pugilism, for they are Jews, and, true to their kind, have only base lucre in view.

It was fierce old Cobbett, I think, who first said that the Jews first introduced bad faith amongst pugilists.  He did not always speak the truth, but at any rate he spoke it when he made that observation.  Strange people the Jews—­endowed with every gift but one, and that the highest, genius divine—­genius which can alone make of men demigods, and elevate them above earth and what is earthy and grovelling; without which a clever nation—­and, who more clever than the Jews?—­may have Rambams in plenty, but never a Fielding nor a Shakespeare.  A Rothschild and a Mendoza, yes—­but never a Kean nor a Belcher.

So the bruisers of England are come to be present at the grand fight speedily coming off; there they are met in the precincts of the old town, near the field of the chapel, planted with tender saplings at the restoration of sporting Charles, which are now become venerable elms, as high as many a steeple; there they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where a retired coachman, with one leg, keeps an hotel and a bowling-green.  I think I now see them upon the bowling-green, the men of renown, amidst hundreds of people with no renown at all, who gaze upon them with timid wonder.  Fame, after all, is a glorious thing, though it lasts only for a day.  There’s Cribb, the champion of England, and perhaps the best man in England; there he is, with his huge massive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a lion.  There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one, who is gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific pugilist that ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be, I won’t say what.  He appears to walk before me now, as he did that evening, with his white hat, white greatcoat, thin genteel figure, springy step, and keen, determined eye.  Crosses him, what a contrast! grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word for nobody, and a hard blow for anybody—­hard! one blow, given with the proper play of his athletic arm, will unsense a giant.  Yonder individual, who strolls about with his hands behind him, supporting his brown coat lappets, under-sized, and who looks anything but what he is, is the king of the light weights, so called—­Randall! the terrible Randall, who has Irish blood in his veins; not the better for that, nor the worse; and not far from him is his last antagonist, Ned Turner, who, though beaten by him, still thinks himself as good a man, in which he is, perhaps, right, for it was a near thing; and ‘a better shentleman,’ in which he is quite right, for he is a Welshman.