pe in a church steeple of 'the old town,' from
pure grief that there was no further demand for the exhibition of his
art, there being no demand for whiffling since the discontinuation of
Guildhall banquets. Whiffling is lost. The old chap left his sword
behind him; let anyone take up the old chap's sword and try to whiffle.
Now much the same hand as he would make who should take up the whiffler's
sword and try to whiffle, would he who should try to use his fists who
had never had the advantage of a master. Let no one think that men use
their fists naturally in their own disputes--men have naturally recourse
to any other thing to defend themselves or to offend others; they fly to
the stick, to the stone, to the murderous and cowardly knife, or to abuse
as cowardly as the knife, and occasionally more murderous. Now which is
best when you hate a person, or have a pique against a person, to clench
your fist and say 'Come on,' or to have recourse to the stone, the knife,
or murderous calumny? The use of the fist is almost lost in England.
Yet are the people better than they were when they knew how to use their
fists? The writer believes not. A fisty combat is at present a great
rarity, but the use of the knife, the noose, and of poison, to say
nothing of calumny, are of more frequent occurrence in England than
perhaps in any country in Europe. Is polite taste better than when it
could bear the details of a fight! The writer believes not. Two men
cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a manly manner without some
trumpery local newspaper letting loose a volley of abuse against 'the
disgraceful exhibition,' in which abuse it is sure to be sanctioned by
its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror, the discovery, for
example, of the mangled remains of a woman in some obscure den, is
greedily seized hold on by the moral journal and dressed up for its
readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the ghastly dish. Now, the writer
of 'Lavengro' has no sympathy with those who would shrink from striking a
blow, but would not shrink from the use of poison or calumny; and his
taste has little in common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy
details of a prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of the
murder dens of modern England. But prize-fighters and pugilists are
blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards they would be, provided
they employed their skill and their prowess for purposes of brutality and