Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 3 (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

May no base beak, or trap with aspect rude,

Upon a comfortable mill intrude—

A mill between not enemies, but friends,

And upon which a lot of blunt depends;

A mill, I trust, which, as in days of yore,

Will honest fighting to the ring restore;

A mill which, whosoe’er may win the same,

Will show the British boxer’s genuine game,

Unkind aspersions on the Fancy crush,

And put accurs’d knife-practice to the blush—