36 MEMOIR OF 



For such ruffianism, however, Russell had 

 no taste ; nor, skilled though he was in spar- 

 ring, could he ever be induced to ride even so 

 far as Bicester to witness a prize-fight. 



"No!" he would say to Denne and others 

 pressing him to accompany them, "if I do get 

 on a horse, it shall be to see a hound with his 

 natural enemy, a fox, before him — a cross- 

 country fight, not one in a ring." 



Still, the Greeks of Homer's song never 

 enjoyed the display of athletic skill more em- 

 phatically than John Russell; for, when a "turn 

 at wrastling" was about to be played between 

 Cann and Polkinghorn — the champions respec- 

 tively of Devon and Cornwall — he has ridden 

 a hundred miles in a day to see the manly 

 game come off. Then, if Cann, his compatriot, 

 proved successful in giving his adversary a 

 fair back-fall. I.e., in bringing three points of 

 his back to the earth without touching it with 

 his limbs, every star in the sky would have 

 cheered him on his long ride home ; ay, and 

 he would not have failed to describe every 

 feature of the "play" for months afterwards, 

 with sparkling comment and unflagging zest. 



Prize-fighting, indeed, popular as it was 

 during the first quarter of the present century, 

 never appears to have taken the same hold of 

 the public mind in Devon and Cornwall as it 

 did in other parts of the United Kingdom. 



