Hooper had now arrived at the summit of his success by the conquest of so game and experienced a pugilist as Wood. His time had come to tread the downward path that leads to the cold shade of poverty, disgrace, and neglect. Within one year of his conquest of Wood his excesses and riot began to tell on a constitution shaken by hard living, night-riot, and debauchery, and Tom Owen,[72] a powerful young fellow, then known as “the Fighting Oilman,” having been quarrelled with by Hooper, professed his desire for a fight with “the Bully,” as he was now generally called. Charley Coant, then a boxer of some note, forming a high opinion of Tom, introduced him to Mr. John Jackson, and that good judge, approving the new candidate for the honours of the P. R., obtained friends for “the Young Oilman,” and a match was made for 100 guineas, which came off at Harrow on the 14th of November, 1796. Owen proved himself a resolute and steady fighter, and in the words of the reporter, “constantly kept a straight guard of such prodigious strength that Hooper could never beat it down, and very seldom put in a hit. Hooper, in striking a blow, dislocated his shoulder, and being dreadfully bruised, gave in” after fifty rounds of hard fighting. (See Life of TOM OWEN, _post_, p. 110). As we have already said, Hooper was but a shadow of his former self; luxury and debauchery had spoiled him.[73] Few men are more obnoxious to the smiles and frowns of fickle fortune than the pugilist: victory brings him fame, riches, and patrons; his bruises are unheeded in the smiles of success; and, basking in the sunshine of prosperity, his life passes pleasantly, till defeat comes, and reverses the scene. Covered with aches and pains, distressed in mind and body, assailed by poverty, wretchedness, and misery, friends forsake him—his fame waxes dim—his character is suspected by the losers; no longer the “plaything of fashion,” he flies to inebriation for relief, and a premature death puts a period to his misfortunes. Thus it was with Hooper: sheltered under the wings of nobility, he became pampered, insolent, and mischievous. His courage was undoubted, and though his frame was but small, it contained the heart of a lion; big men struck no terror to his feelings, and he opposed them with all the hardihood of an equal competitor, determined to conquer. Lord Barrymore, as already noted, was fond of larking and practical jokes, and whenever he could not come through the piece in style, Hooper appeared as his bully—his name overawed, and many a time saved his patron a deserved thrashing. One evening his Lordship took Hooper to Vauxhall, “disguised in liquor,” yet farther disguised in band and cassock, as a clergyman. The visitors discovered “the bully and his patron,” and after some rough handling, they were summarily expelled from what Old Simpson, the M. C., grandiloquently termed “the Royal Property.” At length his lordship cast