Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3) / Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863

by Henry Downes Miles

That filled your house, and fame that filled our isle?’

Entellus thus: ‘My soul is still the same,

Unmoved with fears, and moved with martial fame;

But my chill blood is curdled in my veins,

And scarce the shadow of a man remains.

Oh! could I turn to that fair prime again,

That prime of which this boaster is so vain,

The brave, who this decrepit age defies,

Should feel my force without the promised prize.’”

Entellus then throws down the gauntlets of Eryx (engraved under Cæstus, pp. xiii., xiv.), but Dares, declining the ponderous weapons, old Entellus offers to accommodate him, by permission of the umpires, with a round or two with a lighter pair.