LIFE AT OXFORD. 47 



believe, the merit of being true. Meeting one day with a rough and 

 unruly wayfarer, who showed inclination to pick a quarrel, concern- 

 ing right of passage across a certain bridge, the fellow obstructed 

 the way, and making himself decidedly obnoxious, Wilson lost all 

 patience, and offered to fight him. The man made no objection to 

 the proposal, but replied that he had better not fight with him, as 

 he was so and so, mentioning the name of a (then not unknown) 

 pugilist. This statement had, as may be supposed, no effect in 

 damping the belligerent intentions of the Oxonian ; he knew his own 

 strength, and his skill too. In one moment off went his coat, and 

 he set to upon his antagonist in splendid style. The astonished and 

 punished rival, on recovering from his blows and surprise, accosted 

 him thus : " You can only be one of the two ; you are either Jack 

 Wilson or the Devil." This encounter, no doubt, led, for a short 

 time, to fraternity and equality over a pot of porter. 



His attainments as a leaper were more remarkable. For this 

 exercise he had, in the words of the writer already quoted, "two 

 remarkable advantages. A short trunk and remarkably long legs 

 gave him one-half his advantage in the noble science of leaping ; the 

 other half was pointed out to me by an accurate critic in these mat- 

 ters, as lying hi the particular conformation of his foot, the instep 

 of which is arched, and the back of the heel strengthened in so re- 

 markable a way, that it would be worth paying a penny for a sight 

 of them." After referring to the boastful vanity of the celebrated 

 Cardinal du Perron on this point, he adds : — " The Cardinal, by his 

 own account, appears to have been the flower of Popish leapers ; 

 and, with all deference to his Eminence, upon a better assurance 

 than that, Professor Wilson may be rated, at the time I speak of, as 

 the flower of all Protestant leapers. Not having the Cardinal's 

 foible of connecting any vanity with this little accomplishment, 

 knowing exactly what could, and what could not be effected in this 

 department of gymnastics, and speaking with the utmost simplicity 

 and candor of his failures and his successes alike, he might always 

 be relied upon, and his statements were constantly in harmony with 

 any collateral testimony that chance happened to turn up." 



His most remarkable feat of this kind, the fame of which still 

 lingers round the spot where it took place, is thus referred to by 

 himself: — "A hundred sovereigns to five against any man in Eng- 

 land doing twenty-three feet on a dead level, with a run and a leap 



