University of Virginia Library

Round the First.

Spring was a model of manhood. Chantrey, Canova, or Scoular,
Graved not a finer form; his muscles firmly were filled up,
And with elastic vigour played all over his corpus;
Fine did his deltoid show; his neck rose towering gently
Curved from the shoulder broad; his back was lightsomely dropt in.
Over his cuticle spread a slightly ruddy suffusion,
Shewing his excellent state, and the famous care of his trainers;
Confidence beamed from his face; his eye shone steady in valour.
Valiantly, too, looked Neat, a truly respectable butcher,
But o'er his skin the flush was but in irregular patches:
Even on his cheeks, the bloom was scarce the breadth of a dollar.
Gin, thou wert plainly there! I would he had left thee to Hazlitt,
Ay, or to any one else, all during the process of training!
Bootless 'tis now to complain—Bill Neat, you were bothered by Daffy!
Long did they pause ere they hit—much cautious dodging and guarding
Shewed their respect for each other; four tedious minutes, ere either
Struck, had elapsed; at last Tom Spring hit out with the left hand,
So did Bill Neat with the right, but neither blow did the business,
Neat then made up for offence, and flung out a jolly right-hander,
Full for the stomach of Spring; but Spring judiciously stopped it,
Else it had flattened the lad as flat as the flattest of flounders:
Even as it was, it contused the fleshy part of his fore-arm.
Neat tried the business again—'twas now more happily parried.
Spring, with a smile at the thought of the smash he had given to Bill's fist,
Put down his hands for a while, but soon gathered up to the onset;
Hit and re-hit now passed, but Neat threw off a right-hander
Meant for certain effect. The true scientifical manner
Shewn by William in this was loftily cheered by the audience,
Thunders of clapping ensued, and the whole ring roared like a bullock,
Neat grew offensive now, but the stop and parry of Winter
[Winter is Spring's real name, though they call him, for brevity, Tom Spring.]
Punished him step by step, as Bill drove him into the corner.
“Now is the time,” cried Belcher, and Bristol waited the triumph,
But the position of Spring prevented all awkward invasion.
In-fighting then was tried, that came to a close and a struggle:
Under came Billy Neat, as Ajax under Ulysses.
Spring came over him hard—and 3 to 2 was the betting.