please the populace, they were still inclined to admire because its
origin was of their ancestral Greece.

No persons could at first glance have seemed less evenly matched than
the two antagonists. Tetraides, tho no taller than Lydon, weighed
considerably more; the natural size of his muscles was increased, to
the eyes of the vulgar, by masses of solid flesh; for, as it was a
notion that the contest of the cestus fared easiest with him who was
plumpest, Tetraides had encouraged to the utmost his hereditary
predisposition to the portly. His shoulders were vast, and his lower
limbs thick-set, double-jointed, and slightly curved outward, in that
formation which takes so much from beauty to give so largely to
strength. But Lydon, except that he was slender even almost to
meagerness, was beautifully and delicately proportioned; and the
skilful might have perceived that with much less compass of muscle
than his foe, that which he had was more seasoned--iron and compact.
In proportion, too, as he wanted flesh, he was likely to possess
activity; and a haughty smile on his resolute face, which strongly
contrasted with the solid heaviness of his enemy's, gave assurance to
those who beheld it and united their hope to their pity; so that
despite the disparity of their seeming strength, the cry of the
multitude was nearly as loud for Lydon as for Tetraides.

Whoever is acquainted with the modern prize-ring--whoever has
witnessed the heavy and disabling strokes which the human fist,
skilfully directed, hath the power to bestow--may easily understand
how much that happy facility would be increased by a band carried by
thongs of leather round the arm as high as the elbow, and terribly
strengthened about the knuckles by a plate of iron, and sometimes a
plummet of lead. Yet this, which was meant to increase, perhaps rather
diminished, the interest of the fray; for it necessarily shortened its
duration. A very few blows, successfully and scientifically planted,
might suffice to bring the contest to a close; and the battle did not,
therefore, often allow full scope for the energy, fortitude, and
dogged perseverance that we technically style _pluck_, which not
unusually wins the day against superior science, and which heightens
to so painful a delight the interest in the battle and the sympathy
for the brave.

Tetraides struck--it was as the blow of a smith on a vise; Lydon sank
suddenly on one knee--the blow passed over his head. Not