The address of MacNevis to his antagonist upon meeting him in the ring is conceived in the same style of ferocious grandeur. He sees him applying himself to the bottle, and exclaims[Pg 95]—

While you can see blue ruin, joy!Frater, dum tibi manet lux,
Pull deeper yet and deeper; Bibe ruinæ poculum:
By George! you shall return from hence, Redibis hinc, per Georgium!
Without an open peeper. Utrumque cassus oculum.

Observe that the expression “blue ruin” is very poetical, but my version of it is also prophetical—a charm unknown to the original. Phelim’s reply is beautiful—

Don’t tip me now, my lad of wax, Ne sis, Ο cerâ mollior,
Your blarney and locution, Grandiloquus et vanus;
Och! sure you ar’n’t a giant yet,Heus bone! non es gigas tu,
Nor I a Lilliputian. Et non sum ego nanus.

Here again the author, of course, had Homer in his eye—

Μήτι μευ, ἠύτε παιδὸς ἀφαυροῦ, πειρήτιζε.

And again—

Πηλείδη, μὴ δή μ’ ἐπέεσσί γε, νηπύτιον ὥς,
Ἐλπεο δειδίξεσθαι.

The contest, which, it is possible, I may by-and-by transmit to you at length, is described with a minuteness which far exceeds Virgil’s Dares and Entellus, or even the pugilism of the Sporting Magazine. The modest MacTwolter is, as he deserves to be, the victor. The poem concludes in a high strain of triumph—

So Victory to Phelim gaveVictoria dedit Phelimo
A wife of fair renown; Uxorem valde bonam;
And with that wife she gave besidesEt dedit cum uxore hâc
To him a silver crown. Argenteam coronam.