But the matter must end in some fashion or other,
So Jove told the gods he had made a decree,
That Fig should hit Sutton a stroke on the knee;
Though Sutton, disabled as soon as he hit him,
Would still have fought on, strength would not permit him;
’Twas his fate, not his fault, that constrained him to yield
And thus the great Fig remained Lord of the Field.
At length the time arrived when “the valiant Fig’s” “cunning o’ the fence” no longer availed him. On December 8th, 1734,[[16]] grim death gave him his final knock down, as appears from a notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the month of January, 1735.
“In Fig,” says his pupil and admirer Captain Godfrey (in his “Characters of the Masters,” p. 40, ed. 1747), “strength, resolution, and unparalleled judgment, conspired to form a matchless master. There was a majesty shone in his countenance, and blazed in all his actions, beyond all I ever saw. His right leg bold and firm, and his left, which could hardly ever be disturbed, gave him the surprising advantage already proved, and struck his adversary with despair and panic.”