The reputation of Fig having induced him to open an academy (A.D. 1719), known as “Fig’s Amphitheatre,” in Tottenham Court Road, the place became shortly a great attraction, and was crowded with spectators. It was here that Captain Godfrey (the Barclay of his time) displayed his skill and elegance in manly sports with the most determined competitors, the sports being witnessed by royal and noble personages, who supported the science as tending to endue the people with hardihood and intrepidity. About 1720 Fig resided in Oxford Road, now Oxford-street, and at the period of the curious fac-simile, here for the first time engraved, we find him still in the same neighbourhood.

The science of pugilism, as we now understand it, was certainly in its infancy; the system of “give and take” was adopted, and he who could hit the hardest, or submit to punishment with the best grace, seems to have been in highest favour with the amateurs. Yet Fig’s placards profess to teach “defence scientifically,” and his fame for “stops and parries” was so great, that we find him mentioned in the Tatler, Guardian, and Craftsman, the foremost miscellanies of the time.[[13]] Fig, like modern managers, added to the attractions of his amphitheatre by “stars;” among these were Ned Sutton, the Pipemaker of Gravesend, Timothy Buck, Thomas Stokes, and others, of whom only the names remain. Bill Flanders, or Flinders, “a noted scholar of Fig’s,” fought at the amphitheatre, in 1723, with one Chris. Clarkson, known as “the Old Soldier.” The battle is highly spoken of for determined courage in the “diurnals” of the period.

Smithfield, Moorfields, St. George’s Fields, Southwark, and Hyde Park,[[14]] during this period also had “booths” and “rings” for the display of boxing and stick play. In Hogarth’s celebrated picture of “Southwark Fair” our hero prominently figures, in a caricatured exaggeration, challenging any of the crowd to enter the lists with him for “money, love, or a bellyful.” This picture we have also chosen as an interesting illustration of the great English painter,—a record of manners in a rude period. As one of the bills relating to this fair (which was suppressed in 1763) is extant, we subjoin it:

AT

FIG’S GREAT TIL’D BOOTH,

On the Bowling Green, Southwark,

During the Time of the FAIR,

(Which begins on SATURDAY, the 18th of SEPTEMBER),

The TOWN will be entertained with the

MANLY ARTS OF