[131]. To many who have not the opportunity of perusing the writings of “the author of Boxiana,” as he was wont to call himself, this criticism may appear unduly harsh: this imputation we should be sorry to lie under. While writing these pages, two well filled volumes have been published by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley, entitled “My Life and Recollections,” embracing reminiscences of the first half of the present century, and of persons and events in society. The writer is happy to have so thoroughly competent a confirmation of his condemnation. He may premise also, that the very argot of which Pierce Egan proclaimed himself a professor was not radically English, but the low slang of Irish ruffianism. Mr. Grantley Berkeley says (vol. i., pp. 107, 108):—“The extravagances and absurdities of ‘Tom and Jerry’ were brought into vogue by a low-caste Irishman, known as Pierce Egan, sometimes a newspaper reporter [only in his later day] of fights, etc., and sometimes a low comedian in third-rate Dublin and London theatres. [He was a compositor in Smeeton’s printing office in St. Martin’s Lane.] His ‘Life in London’ was very popular, and he dramatised it at the Adelphi [this was done by Billy Moncrieff] with marked success. He brought out a similar play in the Irish capital, called ‘Life in Dublin,’ and a third in the flourishing commercial port on the Mersey, called ‘Life in Liverpool.’ His ‘Boxiana’ was considered as a text-book on fights and fighting men; and his elaborate and exaggerated descriptions of ‘a mill,’ as prize-fights were designated, were stuffed full of slang, the delight of a large circle of male readers. He assisted in starting a sporting newspaper, the still flourishing Bell’s Life in London [this is totally wrong], and subsequently an opposition one, with a similar title. It failed, and he long outlived his reputation as an author, for he was totally destitute of literary invention: the characters in his stories were thoroughly conventional, and his style never rose above that of an ordinary penny-a-liner. He was a coarse-looking man, who seemed only to have associated with the very lowest society in England and Ireland. Indeed, he used to make boast of his familiarity with the riff-raff of both capitals. The intense vulgarity of his writings grew distasteful; and though he produced several works of imagination, all have sunk into oblivion. Indeed they predeceased their author a good many years. He died totally forgotten by his once innumerable patrons, and the literature of the ring died with him.” The last phrase rounds a period; but a second thought would have told Mr. Berkeley that the really good ring reports which, from about 1824 to a late period, at intervals filled the columns of the Morning Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, the Weekly Dispatch, and other papers, were none of them from the coarse and illiterate pen of “the historian,” but from those of George Kent, Mr. G. Daniels; and principally from those of Mr. Smith, Mr. V. G. Dowling, the writer of this work, and other qualified reporters. Whether the ring itself is dead is another question, which we may now answer in the affirmative with Mr. Grantley Berkeley.
[132]. In Tom Moore’s satirical squib, entitled “Tom Cribb’s Memorial to Congress” (p. 38), he thus ironically glances at Gregson’s pugilistic laureateship:—
“A pause ensued—till cries of ‘Gregson’
Brought Bob, the poet, on his legs soon—
(My eyes, how prettily Bob writes!
Talk of your Camels, Hogs, and Crabs,
And twenty more such Pidcock frights—
Bob’s worth a hundred of these dabs:
For a short turn-up at a sonnet,
A round of odes, or pastoral bout,