“Oh, it is life! to see a proud And dauntless man step, full of hopes, Up to the P. C. stakes and ropes, Throw in his hat, and with a spring Get gallantly within the ring; Eye the wide crown, and walk awhile Taking all cheerings with a smile; To see him strip; his well-trained form, White, glowing, muscular, and warm, All beautiful in conscious power, Relaxed and quiet, till the hour; His glossy and transparent frame, In radiant plight to strive for fame! To look upon the clean shap’d limb In silk and flannel clothèd trim; While round the waist the kerchief tied Makes the flesh glow in richer pride. ’Tis more than life to watch him hold His hand forth, tremulous yet bold, Over his second’s, and to clasp His rival’s in a quiet grasp; To watch the noble attitude He takes, the crowd in breathless mood; And then to see, with adamant start, The muscles set, and the great heart Hurl a courageous splendid light Into the eye, and then—the FIGHT!” But this is general: Hazlitt is specific. His particular Fight was the great one between Neate of Bristol and Tom Hickman the Gasman, Neate being the victor. On May 20, 1823, Neate met Spring of Hertfordshire (so translated out of his natural patronymic of Winter), in a contest for the championship, and Neate himself went under. This latter battle was mock-heroically celebrated by Maginn in _Blackwood’s_, and Hood’s casual meteorological simile heaped up honors on the winner: “The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name. For why? I find her breath a bitter blighter, And suffer from her blows as if they came From Spring the fighter!” So that literature may be said to have set close to the ropes in those days, from first to last. [68] Lamb, in “_A Letter to R. Southey, Esq._” [69] The man of Martial’s epigram had other “views.” The capital translation is Dr. Goldwin Smith’s: “Vacerra lauds no living poet’s lays, But for departed genius keeps his praise. I, alas, live; nor deem it worth my while To die, that I may win Vacerra’s smile.” [70] This was the spirit of Henry Fielding on his last voyage, hoisted aboard among the watermen at Redcliffe, and hearing his emaciated body made the subject of jeers and laughter. “No man who knew me,” he writes in his journal, “will think I conceived any personal resentment at this behavior; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanity in the nature of man which I have often contemplated with concern, and which leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholy thoughts.” It is a fine passage, and a strong heart, not given to boasting, penned it. Poor Hazlitt could not bear even an unintentional slight without imputing diabolical malice to the offender. Yet it was certainly true that, in his saner hours, he could suffer personal discomfort in public without flinching, and deplore the habit which imposed it, rather than the act.