BORROW AND THE FANCY
George Borrow had no sympathy with Thurtell the gambler. I can find no
evidence in his career of any taste for games of hazard or indeed for
games of any kind, although we recall that as a mere child he was able
to barter a pack of cards for the Irish language. But he had certainly
very considerable sympathy with the notorious criminal as a friend and
patron of prize-fighting. This now discredited pastime Borrow ever
counted a virtue. Was not his God-fearing father a champion in his way,
or, at least, had he not in open fight beaten the champion of the
moment, Big Ben Brain? Moreover, who was there in those days with blood
in his veins who did not count the cultivation of the Fancy as the
noblest and most manly of pursuits! Why, William Hazlitt, a prince among
English essayists, whose writings are a beloved classic in our day,
wrote in _The New Monthly Magazine_ in these very years[76] his own
eloquent impression, and even introduces John Thurtell more than once as
'Tom Turtle,' little thinking then of the fate that was so soon to
overtake him. What could be more lyrical than this:
Reader, have you ever seen a fight? If not, you have a pleasure
to come, at least if it is a fight like that between the
Gas-man and Bill Neate.
And then the best historian of prize-fighting, Henry Downes Miles, the
author of _Pugilistica_, has his own statement of the case. You will
find it in his monograph on John Jackson, the pugilist who taught Lord
Byron to box, and received the immortality of an eulogistic footnote in
_Don Juan_. Here is Miles's defence:
No small portion of the public has taken it for granted that
pugilism and blackguardism are synonymous. It is as an antidote
to these slanderers that we pen a candid history of the boxers;
and taking the general habits of men of humble origin (elevated
by their courage and bodily gifts to be the associates 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 Cæsars 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
pæan 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?[77]
[Illustration: THE FAMILY OF JASPER PETULENGRO
'Jasper' or Ambrose Smith was a very old man when this picture was taken
by Mr. Andrew Innes of Dunbar in 1878. In both pictures we see
Sanspirella, Jasper's wife, seated and holding a child. We are indebted
to Mr. Charles Spence of Dunbar for these interesting groups.]
Yes: Borrow was never hard on the bruisers of England, and followed
their achievements, it may be said, from his cradle to his grave. His
beloved father had brought him up, so to speak, upon memories of one who
was champion before George was born--Big Ben Brain of Bristol. Brain,
although always called 'Big Ben,' was only 5 feet 10 in. high. He was
for years a coal porter at a wharf off the Strand. It was in 1791 that
Ben Brain won the championship which placed him upon a pinnacle in the
minds of all robust people. The Duke of Hamilton then backed him against
the then champion, Tom Johnson, for five hundred guineas. 'Public
expectation,' says _The Oracle_, a contemporary newspaper, 'never was
raised so high by any pugilistic contest; great bets were laid, and it
is estimated £20,000 was wagered on this occasion.' Ben Brain was the
undisputed conqueror, we are told, in eighteen rounds, occupying no more
than twenty-one minutes.[78] Brain died in 1794, and all the biographers
tell of the piety of his end, so that Borrow's father may have read the
Bible to him in his last moments, as Borrow avers,[79] but I very much
doubt the accuracy of the following:
Honour to Brain, who four months after the event which I have
now narrated was champion of England, having conquered the
heroic Johnson. Honour to Brain, who, at the end of other four
months, worn out by the dreadful blows which he had received in
his manly combats, expired in the arms of my father, who read
the Bible to him in his latter moments--Big Ben Brain.
We have already shown that Brain lived for four years after his fight
with Johnson. Perhaps the fight in Hyde Park between Borrow's father and
Ben, as narrated in _Lavengro_, is all romancing. It makes good reading
in any case, as does Borrow's eulogy of some of his own contemporaries
of the prize-ring:
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 of people with no renown at all, who gaze upon them
with timid wonder. Fame, after all, is a glorious thing, though
it lasts only for a day. There's Cribb, the champion of
England, and perhaps the best man in England; there he is, with
his huge, massive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a
lion. There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one, who is
gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific
pugilist that ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be,
I won't say what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did
that evening, with his white hat, white greatcoat, thin genteel
figure, springy step, and keen, determined eye. Crosses him,
what a contrast! grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word for
nobody, and a hard blow for anybody--hard! one blow, given with
the proper play of his athletic arm, will unsense a giant.
Yonder individual, who strolls about with his hands behind him,
supporting his brown coat lappets, under-sized, and who looks
anything but what he is, is the king of the light weights, so
called--Randall! the terrible Randall, who has Irish blood in
his veins--not the better for that, nor the worse; and not far
from him is his last antagonist, Ned Turner, who, though beaten
by him, still thinks himself as good a man, in which he is,
perhaps, right, for it was a near thing; and 'a better
shentleman,' in which he is quite right, for he is a Welshman.
But how shall I name them all? They were there by dozens, and
all tremendous in their way. There was Bulldog Hudson, and
fearless Scroggins, who beat the conqueror of Sam the Jew.
There was Black Richmond--no, he was not there, but I knew him
well; he was the most dangerous of blacks, even with a broken
thigh. There was Purcell, who could never conquer till all
seemed over with him. There was--what! shall I name thee last?
ay, why not? I believe that thou art the last of all that
strong family still above the sod, where mayest thou long
continue--true piece of English stuff, Tom of Bedford--sharp as
winter, kind as spring.
All this is very accurate history. We know that there really was this
wonderful gathering of the bruisers of England assembled in the
neighbourhood of Norwich in July 1820, that is to say, sixteen miles
away at North Walsham. More than 25,000 men, it is estimated, gathered
to see Edward Painter of Norwich fight Tom Oliver of London for a purse
of a hundred guineas. There were three Belchers, heroes of the
prize-ring, but Borrow here refers to Tom, whose younger brother, Jem,
had died in 1811 at the age of thirty. Tom Belcher died in 1854 at the
age of seventy-one. Thomas Cribb was champion of England from 1805 to
1820. One of Cribb's greatest fights was with Jem Belcher in 1807, when,
in the forty-first and last round, as we are told by the chroniclers,
'Cribb proving the stronger man put in two weak blows, when Belcher,
quite exhausted, fell upon the ropes and gave up the combat.' Cribb had
a prolonged career of glory, but he died in poverty in 1848. Happier was
an earlier champion, John Gully, who held the glorious honour for three
years--from 1805 to 1808. Gully turned tavern-keeper, and making a
fortune out of sundry speculations, entered Parliament as member for
Pontefract, and lived to be eighty years of age.
It is necessary to dwell upon Borrow as the friend of prize-fighters,
because no one understands Borrow who does not realise that his real
interests were not in literature but in action. He would have liked to
join the army but could not obtain a commission. And so he had to be
content with such fighting as was possible. He cared more for the men
who could use their fists than for those who could but wield the pen. He
would, we may be sure, have rejoiced to know that many more have visited
the tomb of Tom Sayers in Highgate Cemetery than have visited the tomb
of George Eliot in the same burial-ground. A curious moral obliquity
this, you may say. But to recognise it is to understand one side of
Borrow, and an interesting side withal.
FOOTNOTES:
[76] _The New Monthly Magazine_, February 1822, 'The Fight.' Reprinted
among William Hazlitt's _Fugitive Writings_ in vol. xii. of his
Collected Works (Dent, 1904).
[77] _Lavengro_ ch. xxvi. 'It is as good as Homer,' says Mr. Augustine
Birrell, quoting the whole passage in his _Res Judicatæ_. Mr. Birrell
tells a delightful story of an old Quaker lady who was heard to say at a
dinner-table, when the subject of momentary conversation was a late
prize-fight: 'Oh, pity it was that ever corruption should have crept in
amongst them'--she had just been reading _Lavengro_.
[78] _Pugilistica_, vol. i. 69.
[79] _Lavengro_, ch. i.