36 TJie Pytchley Hunt, Past and Present, [chap. n. 



unsound. £25 is a sound price for a pony; and by 

 lieavens, I will, if it costs me £500, make an example of 

 Mr. J. if the money be not returned at once. 

 '^ Believe me^ dear Jack, 



'* Yours, &c., 



'' Byron.'' 



Of John Gully, pugilist, publican, liell-keeper, betting 

 man, country squire, and member of parliament, we read 

 as follows in '^ Riley's Itinerant:'' — 



" One evening I accompanied honest Jack Emery (the 

 well-know^n actor), to a tavern in Carey Street kept by 

 John Gully. He unfortunately was from home, but Cribb, 

 the champion of England, was officiating as his locum- 

 tenenSj handing about pots of porter and grog with perse- 

 vering industry. Mrs. Gully, a neat little woman, civil 

 and attentive, superintended at the bar, where we obtained 

 leave to sit, Emery evidently being in great favour. 

 Cribb, who had obtained popularity by his prowess, was 

 originally a coalheaver, and has several brothers in the 

 same employment. He is sturdy and stout-built : stands 

 five feet eight, and is clumsy in appearance and hard- 

 featured. Having detained him a few minutes in 

 conversation, Emery said to me : ' Well, what do you 

 think of him ? The greatest man in his way, or perhaps 

 in any other, that England can boast.' In spite of 

 there being '' nothing like leather," we here see the 

 actor giving precedence to the '^ fighting-man " over 

 all of his own craft, and prepared to invest him with a 

 greater halo of renown than he would assign to a Kean 

 or a Kemble a Listen, or a Mathews ! The feeling 

 that the '' P.R." as it was termed, fostered public 

 courage, and on the whole was a praiseworthy institu- 



