Note 142 — Chapter I

This speech was thus poetically paraphrased in a weekly journal, from which we quote a few of the lines:—

“THE CHAMPION’S RETIREMENT.

“‘Every puny whipster gets my sword.’—Shakspeare.

“No so with our champion of Britain’s proud throng,

He still rears his crest for the fight or the song;

‘Bout friendship or fighting he can’t make a speech,

O’ the latter he’d much rather practise than preach.

A lapse of ten years or more soon roll’d away,

Since Afric’s brave bully proclaim’d it Tom’s day;

He then, like a game cock, retired with his pickings,

In peace to provide for his old hen and chickens;

When, lo! a cock crow’d on his walk in the west,

Supposing ‘Old Tom’ of Old Tom had the best;

But Tom left his ‘Hodges,’ gout, crutches, behind,

Reducing his belly, increasing his wind:—

The fight was proclaim’d, and some money put down,

To see who’d best claim to their country’s renown.

Cribb came to the scratch, like a hero, to meet

His man, but he back’d out;—now wasn’t that Neat?

“AN OLD MILLER.”