at were the gladiators of Rome,
or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to
England's bruisers? Pity that ever corruption should have crept in
amongst them--but of that I wish not to talk; let us still hope that a
spark of the old religion, of which they were the priests, still lingers
in the breasts of Englishmen. There they come, the bruisers, from far
London, or from wherever else they might chance to be at the time, to the
great rendezvous in the old city; some came one way, some another: some
of tip-top reputation came with peers in their chariots, for glory and
fame are such fair things, that even peers are proud to have those
invested therewith by their sides; others came in their own gigs, driving
their own bits of blood, and I heard one say: "I have driven through at a
heat the whole hundred and eleven miles, and only stopped to bait twice."
Oh, the blood-horses of old England! but they, too, have had their
day--for everything beneath the sun there is a season and a time. But
the greater number come just as they can contrive; on the tops of
coaches, for example; and amongst these there are fellows with dark
sallow faces, and sharp shining eyes; and it is these that have planted
rottenness in the core of pugilism, for they are Jews, and, true to their
kind, have only base lucre in view.

It was fierce old Cobbett, I think, who first said that the Jews first
introduced bad faith amongst pugilists. He did not always speak the
truth, but at any rate he spoke it when he made that observation. Strange
people the Jews--endowed with every gift but one, and that the highest,
genius divine--genius which can alone make of men demigods, and elevate
them above earth and what is earthy and grovelling; without which a
clever nation--and who more clever than the Jews?--may have Rambams in
plenty, but never a Fielding nor a Shakespeare. A Rothschild and a
Mendoza, yes--but never a Kean nor a Belcher.

So the bruisers of England are come to be present at the grand fight
speedily coming off; there they are met in the precincts of the old town,
near the field of the chapel, planted with tender saplings at the
restoration of sporting Charles, which are now become venerable elms, as
high as many a steeple; there they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where
a retired coachman, with one leg, keeps an hotel and a bowling-green. I
think I now see them upon the bowling-green, the men of renown, amidst
hundreds