title back in his face with an air of infinite indignation. "I should like to know who you call Sam?" exclaimed he-"The gemmen from Lon'on, when they speaks to me, calls me Mister Porch."-But mollifying immediately after, he added- Well-all the harm I wish you is, that the fight may be ten miles off, all down lanes!" (We did not at that time know exactly where it would be; and he himself was on a pony, while the person he addressed was in a gig.)

Shall I now confess to an instance in my own person, of the pitiful weakness of poor human nature? The candour of the admission may perhaps compensate for the involuntary fault. Sincere, then, as was my admiration for the eloquence of this gifted person; and unconscious as I was, at the time I was listening to his talk, of any thing like envy mixing itself with my feelings respecting him, I was not a little delighted at the prospect, which shortly afterwards presented itself, of his getting a hearty thrashing from an unlicked cub of a countryman whom he had insulted from within the ring, in consequence of the former (who did not know his pre-eminent pretensions) disputing his right to be there. It was evident, from his pale cheeks and quivering lips, that

Sam Porch's prowess was confined to the power of " pattering flash," and that one or two pat repartees from the fist of the pig-feeder would have speedily vinced" his opponent (in the language of Lady Macbeth)

"con

-or "taken the shine out of him"-to borrow, as an especial compliment to Sam, a phrase of his own.—I repeat, the feelings of envy that I had been unconsciously cherishing towards this possessor of a kind of knowledge and power that I myself had no pretensions to, could no longer repress themselves, when (as I thought) I was on the point of seeing him reduced to the level of his fellowbeings. But a dexterous turn of that only weapon Sam

possessed-namely, his tongue-turned the tide upon his adversary, and in the confusion of tongues that followed, Sam walked off,-leaving his dumb-foundered foe covered with grins instead of glory. On serious reflection afterwards, I was not sorry for this. "Before we exult over Horace for being a coward (thought I), let us learn to write odes like him. To do one thing pre-eminently well is all that we should look for from one man. And at all events, let me learn to write as smart an article in a day as Sam Porch could talk in an hour, before I pretend to make any comparisons at all between him and myself-seeing that, even if the ploughman had "punished" him for his temerity, he would still have been able to talk to a stand-still any ten contributors to the best periodical going-editor included!Before taking a final leave of this remarkable person, I would suggest that, if the language which is peculiar to the fancy must be retained, it be henceforth denominated the language of THE PORCH-as an especial tribute of applause to the merits of this its most accomplished professor. It is true we have already the philosophy of the Porch ; but there is little fear of the allusions being confounded together.

This short digression brings me into the ring just before the commencement of the fight on the memorable 11th of December, 1821. To describe the details of that fight at this distant period, and after the manner in which they have been recorded by historians so much better qualified than I can pretend to be, would be no less presumptuous than superfluous. But as I saw the whole under peculiar advantages, (being close to the ropes nearly all the time,) it may not be amiss to mention a few particulars that necessarily escaped general observation; or that have, at all events, remained hitherto unrecorded. In speak

ing of the battle afterwards to a friend, he compared it to one between a cat and a terrier dog-likening the extraordinary quickness and vivacity of Gas to the one, and the cool and wary determination of Neate to the other. I liked this illustration at the time, as I do all his; but I have since thought, that a bull-dog and a bull would have been more appropriate for the blows of Neate actually tossed his adversary off the groundyou could see him sprawling up in the air before he fell, and could hear him fall flop down. But, in fact, neither of the comparisons are very appropriate, except in one or two particulars. And no wonder; for it was not a sight to be compared with any other that ever was seen, or will be;-" None but itself can be its parallel."

After the battle was over, I was at Gas's side before he awoke from the stupor into which the last blow had thrown him. On recovering his senses, his first words were "Hollo !-where am I?"-then recollecting himself, he tried to start up, crying-“ Come! Come!"-meaning, "let me be at him again!”—But it was too late. "No, Tom," was Jackson's reply"He's beat you, my boy; but you're the bravest fellow alive, for all that." Meantime, the majority had collected round Neate, who was almost unhurt. He was as mild and unpresuming after his victory as he had been before it; except that he rather disdainfully declined the offered hands of the crowd of would-be friends who were pressing round him-knowing, perhaps, that if he had lost the battle, the same hands would have been pointed at him in scorn; and once, and once only, he let an exclamation of honest exultation escape him, on catching the eye of a friend at a little distance: Well, my boy-didn't I tell you I should lick him!”

66

Luckily the promised fight between Jos. Hudson and the Suffolk Champion (which was to have followed) did not take place. Good as this would, doubtless, have been in its way, it would have seemed like staying to witness a paltry melo-drame after having seen Kean and Kemble act together in a high tragedy !—for Neate's fighting is, in fact, not unlike Kemble's acting, and Gas's was as much like Kean's as fighting can be. The lesser would have disturbed and weakened the impressions left by the greater, without adding to them, or substituting others in their place.

Behold us, then-for I had a friend on the ground, and we had determined to be conjunctive during the journey to town-at three in the afternoon turn our faces towards our homes sixty miles in the distance :-I, prepared to assert with the pertinacity of an old believer, and he to prove with the zeal and eloquence of a new one, that fighting is the finest of all possible things, and that the fight we had just witnessed was the finest of all possible fights.

I must not trust myself to tell of our journey home, and of the talk that beguiled it, lest I should be tempted to extend these desultory reminiscences throughout all the rest of the pages of this "pleasant periodical." Not that I doubt the propriety of such a proceeding, for once in a way—at least as it regards the readers of those pages. But readers' inclinations are not the only ones to be consulted on such occasions. If it were not as pleasant to write a good thing as to read it when written, the pages of many an Album besides ours might remain blank.Suffice it, then, that the out-of-door part of our talk, as we paced the pathway in the cold sunshine, changed the winter about us into spring-decking the dry branches of the trees with green, and the hard ground

with flowers; and that the in-door part, at our pleasant
inn at night and in the morning, brightened the fire
better than stirring, and gave a relish to the repast
that nothing but conversation can. Of my own share
I shall say nothing; because I am a modest man, and
moreover pique myself on being the best of listeners ;-
and one rare quality (as I have hinted above) is enough
to look for from one man. But of my friend's, I will
venture to say, without the fear even of his contradic-
tion, (though he, too, is a modest man,) that it would
not have been better, had it proceeded from the lips of
either of the Sams to whom I have before alluded.—
Finally, it was redolent of The Fight in every feature of
it. From that it proceeded as from a spring; round
that it revolved and coruscated in its eccentric course,
like a comet round the sun; and in that it ended and
was merged and lost, like the aforesaid comet in the sun.
I have, gentle reader, called up these reminiscences
at this time, partly because the principal subject of
them has lately quitted the scene for ever; but chiefly
because he was suddenly

Sent to his account, unhouseled, unanealed,
With all his imperfections on his head,

in addition to the weight of a broad-wheeled waggon; and has thus been prevented from wiping off that stain upon his name which, perhaps the weakness of his and our nature, perhaps the malice of his enemies, cast upon it; and which has been industriously communicated thence to his profession, with a view to prove that that has a tendency to deteriorate the human character, instead of elevating it, and to weaken the principles in proportion as it strengthens the muscles. I deny the inference with my doubled fists-as every lover of fighting ought. Admitting that Gas did take a bribe-have