I can remember Mr. Lynch’s boxing for his University, and the severe discomfort he occasioned his Cambridge adversary; and when I recall the many excellent books (on different subjects) which he has previously given us, I see in him an author who has not only the knowledge but the skill to produce that requisite blend of literature and experience which can alone commend the subject of his volume to the English-speaking public. I wish I could claim as much myself. But I suffered from the educational advantage of having a younger brother who knocked me down (and often “out”) with the greatest kindliness and persistence whenever we put on the gloves together; and being overmuch puffed up with pride at finding I could stand so much of it, I rashly took on a guardsman so considerably my superior that after three rounds I was never allowed to box again, and had to quench my thirst for personal combat in ensuing years with foil and duelling-sword. My brother died suddenly of a fever when he was in training under Bat Mullens for the Amateur Championship, and only twenty-one. He was six feet three and thirteen stone stripped, and I never saw an amateur I thought his better until Hopley came into the ring for Cambridge; and no one ever knew how good Hopley was, for no one ever stood in the ring with him for more than two minutes, and he retired, like St. Simon (I mean, of course, the Duke of Portland’s thoroughbred) as undefeated as he was unextended. Another very good fight in Mr. Lynch’s book (and I have never read a better analysis of the technical “knock-out” than the one he gives on page 126) is that between Peter Jackson and Frank Slavin. I saw it, so I can correct a slight verbal error (foreseen in his own footnote) in Mr. Lynch’s pages. Mr. Angle (I have his letter before me) did not say “Fight on” at that dreadful moment when the packed house could scarcely breathe; when Slavin was tottering blindly to and fro, refusing to give in; when Peter looked out at us appealingly, with the native chivalry that shone through his black skin, and evidently hated to continue. The referee’s quiet syllables, “_Box on_,” sounded like a minute-gun at sea, and in a few moments it was all over. When Slavin was brought round in his dressing-room, and told he had been knocked out, he muttered, “They’ll never believe that in Melbourne.”