At one period this weighty and hard-hitting specimen of the Bristol school bid fair to attain the topmost round of the ladder to pugilistic fame. Neat was born on the 11th of March, 1791, in Castle Street, of respectable hardworking parents, and was known to his townsmen for many years of his youth and manhood as a man of prodigious strength of arm, temperate habits, and extreme personal civility. A finer young fellow, “take him for all in all,” could not be met with in a day’s walk in a populous city. His height was five feet eleven inches and a half; his weight, in training, thirteen stone seven pounds. He had arrived at the age of twenty-seven before London heard of his provincial reputation, a fight with one Churchill, a maltster, weighing fourteen stone, being his only recorded battle. This was a somewhat curious affair. It was admitted that Churchill could not beat Neat, but the latter, for a trifling wager, offered to thrash Churchill “in ten minutes!” The cash was posted, and the combat came off, Churchill fighting with “yokel desperation.” Nevertheless, Neat lost his money by not hitting his opponent out of time in the ridiculously short space stipulated by the agreement. However, the powers displayed by Neat led to some conversation, in which a Bristol amateur offered to find 100 guineas for Neat, if he chose to meet Tom Oliver, then in the city on a sparring tour. Neat, who was as brave as he was powerful, closed with the offer. Bristol, since the appearance of the renowned Jem and Tom Belcher in the metropolitan prize ring, followed in rapid succession by the never-defeated Game Chicken, the truly brave Gully, and the staunch and often-tried Champion of England, Tom Cribb, not only attained a high character for pugilistic excellence, but was denominated the “nursery of British boxers.” Neat was brought forward under those advantages; and although he could not boast of the experience of “Battles bravely fought, and hardly won!” [Illustration: BILL NEAT. ] yet his qualifications were so promising, his patronage so high and imposing, that with the improving value of ten weeks’ training under the immediate auspices and tuition of Cribb, the advice of Gully, and the generally sound judgment of Captain Barclay, he soon became the favourite; the Bristolians anxiously anticipating, through the exertions of this new candidate for milling fame, to realize the days of another Jem Belcher. Oliver, nothing loth, accepted the cartel, and the subjoined articles were drawn up:— “W. Neat engages to fight Thos. Oliver on the 10th of July, 1818, within thirty miles of London, for 100 guineas a-side. A fair stand-up fight, in a twenty-four feet ring. Mr. Jackson to name the place. The whole of the money to be made good on the 23rd of May. Neat not to exceed thirteen stone seven pounds. Ten guineas a-side are now deposited. “Witness, W. TEAST.”