There is no sense in the answer always made to this, ‘Are no men brave but boxers?’ Bravery is found in all habits, classes, circumstances, and conditions. But have habits and institutions of one sort no tendency to form it more than another? Longevity is found in persons of habits the most opposite; but are not certain habits more favourable to it than others? The courage does not arise from mere boxing, from the mere beating, or being beat, but from the sentiments excited by the contemplation and cultivation of such practices. “Will it make no difference in the mass of people, whether their amusements are all of a pacific, pleasurable, and effeminate nature; or whether they are of a sort that calls forth a continued admiration of prowess and hardihood?” A slight anecdote, apropos of the prevalence of the taste for the use of the “muffles,” as boxing-gloves were then called, will take us back to the days when Vauxhall was in the height of its splendour. Old Tyers, then the proprietor of the Gardens, had commissioned Hayman, the painter, to panel the “Hall of British Worthies” with portraits of the heroes of our land. The gallant and good-natured Marquis of Granby was waited upon by Tyers, with a request that he would honour Hayman with a sitting. In consequence, the hero of Minden dropped in at the artist’s studio in St. Martin’s Lane. “But, Frank,” said the peer, “before I sit to you, I insist upon having a set-to with you.” Hayman, astonished at the oddity of the observation, affected not to understand his visitor, whereupon the Marquis exclaimed, “I have been told that you are one of the last boxers of the school of Broughton, and I flatter myself not altogether deficient in the pugilistic art; but since I have been in Germany I have got out of practice, therefore I want a little trial of your skill.” Hayman pleaded age and gout as obstacles to his consent. To the first the Marquis replied, “There was very little difference between them; and to the second, that he considered exercise as a specific remedy,” adding, laughing, “besides, a few rounds will cause a glow of countenance that will give animation to the canvass.” Hayman no longer resisted; the gloves were donned, and to it they went. After a good display of strength and science, Hayman delivered such a straight hit in the “breadbasket,” that down they both went with a tremendous crash. This brought up stairs the affrighted Mrs. Hayman, who found the academician and commander-in-chief rolling over each other on the carpet like two unchained bears. Frank, who was a humourist and _bon vivant_, often narrated this anecdote of the nobleman, “Who filled our sign-posts then as Wellesley now,” over a social glass at his own and his friends’ merry meetings.