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To turn from the musical art to the art or science is it called? of self-defence, once so patronised by the highest fashion, there was at this time a famous pugilistic battle the last of the old kind fought between the English champion, Tom Sayers, and the American champion, Heenan. Bertie Mitford and I agreed to go and see it.
To suggest the pastoral and meditative nature of their peaceful calling, Mr. Heenan is represented on emerald sward, with primroses and other modest flowers springing up under the heels of his half- boots; while Mr. Sayers is impelled to the administration of his favourite blow, the Auctioneer, by the silent eloquence of a village church.
One of the pleasantest things I have lately met with, in a vagabond course of shy metropolitan neighbourhoods and small shops, is the fancy of a humble artist, as exemplified in two portraits representing Mr. Thomas Sayers, of Great Britain, and Mr. John Heenan, of the United States of America. These illustrious men are highly coloured in fighting trim, and fighting attitude.
The man who can row the swiftest, or strike a ball the farthest, or drop the strongest wrestler is coming to be of more importance. Strong muscle is a grand thing to have, but everything depends on how you use it. If Heenan had become a Christian, he would have made a capital professor in Polemic Theology.
As an evidence of what was uppermost in the minds of most people at this time, and is probably still true to-day, it may be related that in the spring of 1860, when the great prize fight between Heenan and Sayers was to occur in England, and the meeting of the Democratic national convention in Charleston, in which the Minnesota Democrats were in hopes that their idol, Stephen A. Douglas, would be nominated for president, the first question asked by the people I would meet on the way from the boat landing to the office would be: "Anything from the prize fight?
They swept from one end of the ring to the other, with every muscle leaping in unison with those of the man they favored, and when a New York correspondent muttered over his shoulder that this would be the biggest sporting surprise since the Heenan- Sayers fight, Mr. Dwyer nodded his head sympathetically in assent.
"Balance up to me, you beer-bloated Britisher," he exclaimed, "and git naturalized by a real Star-Spangled Banner lickin' by an artist who kin comb down any man that owes allegiance to Queen Victoree. Here's a Heenan for your Tom Sayers." The Englishman began disrobing with an alacrity that showed how much his heart was in it.
And it is pleasant to find how well the events of the day are still remembered by the peasantry of the neighbourhood. There is no fear, as there is said to be in the neighbourhood of Worcester, of an inquirer after the field of battle being taken to see the scene of a battle between some local Sayers and Heenan.
Many yet will remember how its smoke went up. The summer summer of 1860 grew fervent. Its breath became hot and dry. All observation all thought turned upon the fierce campaign. Discussion dropped as to whether Heenan would ever get that champion's belt, which even the little rector believed he had fairly won in the international prize-ring.
I was a painfully slow and awkward pupil, and certainly worked two or three years before I made any perceptible improvement whatever. My first boxing-master was John Long, an ex-prize-fighter. I can see his rooms now, with colored pictures of the fights between Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan, and Heenan and Sayers, and other great events in the annals of the squared circle.
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