If ever responsible overstatement reached the border-line of sheer dementia it is here. But for the sake of politeness, let us content ourselves with saying, further, that the reviewer’s enthusiasm got the better of his judgment. What matters to us now is that Pierce Egan made a record of the old Prize Ring which is invaluable. So that we are not concerned so much with his literary distinction as with his accuracy as a chronicler, and, as other records of contemporary events are either scarce, or, as in some cases, totally lacking, it is not easy to check his accounts.
From internal evidence, we know at the first glance at Boxiana that we must be careful; for Egan shouts his praises of almost all pugilists upon the same note. And all of them cannot have been as good as all that! This author was a passionate admirer of the noble art and of the men who followed it, and it is his joyous zeal (apart from the matters of fact which he tells us) that make him worth reading. For the rest we must regard him as we are, nowadays, prone to regard most historians, and make such allowance as we see fit for inevitable exaggerations. That, on one occasion at least, he was deliberately inaccurate, we shall see later on.
There was a delightful simplicity about the old boxing matches. The men fought to a finish; that is, until one or other of them failed to come up to the scratch, chalked in the mid-ring, or until the seconds or backers gave in for them, which last does not appear to have happened very often. A round ended with a knock-down or a fall from wrestling, and half a minute only was allowed for rest and recovery.
One of the illustrations in this book is taken from a print of the original Rules governing Prize-Fights, “as agreed by several gentlemen at Broughton’s Amphitheatre, Tottenham Court Road, August, 16th, 1743.”
These Rules were as follows:—
I.—That a square of a Yard be chalked in the middle of the Stage; and on each fresh set-to after a fall, or being from the rails, each Second is to bring his Man to the side of the Square, and place him opposite to the other, and until they are fairly set-to at the Lines, it shall not be lawful for one to strike at the other.
THE RING
RULES
TO BE OBSERVED IN ALL BATTLES ON THE STAGE