arp in the bows,
long in the spars, slender to look at, and fast to go, the ship,
which is the great organ of our national life of relation, is but a
reproduction of the typical form which the elements impress upon
its builder. All this we cannot help; but we can make the best of
these influences, such as they are. We have a few good boatmen,
--no good horsemen that I hear of,--I cannot speak for cricketing,
--but as for any great athletic feat performed by a gentleman in
these latitudes, society would drop a man who should run round the
Common in five minutes. Some of our amateur fencers, single-stick
players, and boxers, we have no reason to be ashamed of. Boxing is
rough play, but not too rough for a hearty young fellow. Anything
is better than this white-blooded degeneration to which we all
tend.

I dropped into a gentlemen's sparring exhibition only last evening.
It did my heart good to see that there were a few young and
youngish youths left who could take care of their own heads in case
of emergency. It is a fine sight, that of a gentleman resolving
himself into the primitive constituents of his humanity. Here is a
delicate young man now, with an intellectual countenance, a slight
figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, a
mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan from between
the ploughtails would of course expect to handle with perfect ease.
Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is
divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his
coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and
with two things that look like batter puddings in the place of his
fists. Now see that other fellow with another pair of batter
puddings,--the big one with the broad shoulders; he will certainly
knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him. Feinting,
dodging, stopping, hitting, countering,--little man's head not off
yet. You might as well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit
the little man's intellectual features. He needn't have taken off
the gold-bowed spectacles at all. Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble,
cool, he catches all the fierce lunges or gets out of their reach,
till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter
puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into
the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping,
collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous
bundle.-