"_None but himself can be his parallel."

With marble-coloured shoulders,--and keen eyes,
Protected by a forehead broad and white--
And hair cut close lest it impede the sight,
And clenched hands, firm, and of punishing size,--
Steadily held, or motion'd wary-wise
To hit or stop,--and kerchief too drawn tight
O'er the unyielding loins, to keep from flight
The inconstant wind, that all too often flies,--
The Nonpareil stands! Fame, whose bright eyes run o'er
With joy to see a Chicken of her own.
Dips her rich pen in_ claret_, <and writes down
Under the letter R, first on the score,
"Randall,--John,--Irish Parents,--age not known,--
Good with both hands, and only ten stone four!_"

Be not too hard on this piece of barbarism, virtuous reader! Virtue is
well revenged by the inevitable question! "Who was John Randall?"
In 1820 it was said: "Of all the great men in this age, in poetry,
philosophy, or pugilism, there is no one of such transcendent talent
as Randall, no one who combines the finest natural powers with the
most elegant and finished acquired ones." Now, if his memory be
revived for a moment, this master of science, who doubled up an
opponent as if he were plucking a flower, and whose presence turned
Moulsey Hurst into an Olympia, is in danger of being confounded with
the last couple of drunken Irishwomen who have torn out each other's
hair in handfuls in some Whitechapel courtyard. The mighty have
fallen, the stakes and ring are gone forever, and Virtue is avenged.
The days of George IV. are so long, long gone past that a paradoxical
creature may be forgiven for a sigh over the ashes of the glory of
John Randall.

It is strange how much genuine poetry lingers in this odd collection
of verses in praise of prizefighting. There are lines and phrases that
recall Keats himself, though truly the tone of the book is robust
enough to satisfy the most impassioned of Tory editors. As it happens,
it was written by Keats's dearest friend, by John Hamilton Reynolds,
whom the great poet mentions so affectionately in the latest of all
his letters. Reynolds has been treated with scant consideration by the
critics. His verses, I protest, are no whit less graceful or sparkling
than those of his more eminent companions, Leigh Hunt and Barry
Cornwall. His _Garden of Florence_ is worthy of the friend of Keats.
We have seen how his _Peter Bell_, which was Peter Bell the First,
took the