s of those
more fortunate in worldly position), we fearlessly maintain
that the best of our boxers present as good samples of honesty,
generosity of spirit, goodness of heart and humanity, as an
equal number of men of any class of society.

From Samuel Johnson to George Bernard Shaw literary England has had a
kindness for the pugilist, although the magistrate has long, and
rightly, ruled him out as impossible. Borrow carried his enthusiasm
further than any, and no account of him that concentrates attention upon
his accomplishment as a distributor of Bibles and ignores his delight in
fisticuffs, has any grasp of the real George Borrow. Indeed it may be
said, and will be shown in the course of our story, that Borrow entered
upon Bible distribution in the spirit of a pugilist rather than that of
an evangelist. But to return to Borrow's pugilistic experiences. He
claims, as we have seen, occasionally to have put on the gloves with
John Thurtell. He describes vividly enough his own conflicts with the
Flaming Tinman and with Petulengro. His one heroine, Isopel Berners,
had 'Fair Play and Long Melford' as her ideal, 'Long Melford' being the
good right-handed blow with which Lavengro conquered the Tinman. Isopel,
we remember, had learned in Long Melford Union to 'Fear God and take
your own part!'

George Borrow, indeed, was at home with the whole army of
prize-fighters, who came down to us like the Roman Caesars or the Kings
of England in a noteworthy procession, their dynasty commencing with
James Fig of Thame, who began to reign in 1719, and closing with Tom
King, who beat Heenan in 1863, or with Jem Mace, who flourished in a
measure until 1872. With what zest must Borrow have followed the account
of the greatest battle of all, that between Heenan and Tom Sayers at
Farnborough in 1860, when it was said that Parliament had been emptied
to patronise a prize-fight; and this although Heenan complained that he
had been chased out of eight counties. For by this time, in spite of
lordly patronage, pugilism was doomed, and the more harmless boxing had
taken its place. 'Pity that corruption should have crept in amongst
them,' sighed Lavengro in a memorable passage, in which he also has his
paean of praise for the bruisers of England:

Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England--what were the
gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its
palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers?[7