Allows them to impose on a nation good and generous,
To incumber and pollute our native soil.
But John Bull cries out aloud,
We’re neither poor nor proud,
But open to all nations, let them come from where they will;
The British lads that’s here,
Quite strangers are to fear,
Here’s Tom Cribb, with bumpers round, for he can them mill!”[[132]]
With this specimen of crambo the reader will be satisfied. Some really clever poetical effusions from the pens of Mr. Hunter, of Southampton, Mr. Vincent Dowling and others, which from time to time adorned the columns of Bell’s Life in London, will occur among the records of passing ring events, and these we shall gladly transfer to the enlivening of the pages of our history.
From 1808 to 1814, when Tom Belcher succeeded him as landlord of the Castle, “Bob’s Chop-house,” as it was called, was the head quarters of ring patrons and pugilists. As a business speculation, however, Gregson did not make it pay. The celebrated Yorkshire actor, Robert Emery, of Covent Garden, appears to have been a staunch patron of Bob’s, taking the chair at his opening dinner, and contributing his great vocal and conversational talents to his service on festive occasions. On one of these we find a song containing a stanza laudatory of Bob, in which his early position as the commander of a packet is clearly mentioned:—