34 ^/^^ Pytchley Hunt, Past and Pi'esejtt, [chap. n. 



he said on liis return ; ^^ he entirely missed my leading 

 passion/^ " What do you consider that to be ? ^' asked a 

 friend. ^^ To see sporting-dogs hunt/' was the reply, 

 '^ nothing in the world gives metlie same pleasure." Not 

 inheriting his father's (the great bibliophile of the day, 

 to whom the Althorp Library is indebted for its price- 

 less possessions) love for books, he patronized all athletic 

 exercises, and made a real stud}'- of boxing, taking 

 lessons from the best instructors. He had many a ^'set- 

 to" with his fellow-Harrovian, Lord Byron, — a very 

 handy man with his fists, — and so hard did he hit, that 

 it used to be commonly said of bim that he was a ^^ prize- 

 figbter thrown away.'' This was tlie halcyon era of the 

 prize-ring. The British public, from the Prince Eegent 

 to Jack the sweep, had imbibed the notion that a fight 

 was an English and a manly institution, and was an 

 antidote to the foreign^ practice of settling disputes with 

 the knife. All its roguery and its attendant black- 

 guardism were ignored, and the principal pugilists of 

 the time, men springing from the lowest dregs of society, 

 were treated as equals by the magnates of the land. 

 Jackson, Gully, Spring, and Cribb, were looked upon as 

 heroes cast in no ordinary mould; and the first was 

 treated on the most familiar terms by Lord Byron ; 

 whilst the Regent thought it no degradation to drive 

 about Brighton with the second by his side. Lord 

 Althorp used to say that his conviction of the advantages 

 of boxing was so strong that he had been seriously con- 

 sidering whether it was not his duty to attend every 

 prize-fight, so as to encourage the noble science to the 

 utmost of his power. He would tell his friends, with no 

 little animation, how he had seen Mendoza the Jew 



