or reflection. It has been well
observed, that "place an Englishman in the field of battle, no matter
what his political feelings, he will fight like a lion, by instinct, or
the mere force of example;" so with the narrator of this contest. I had
not, up to this time, the least knowledge of the original cause of the
row. I have naturally an aversion to pugilistic contests and tumultuous
sports, and yet I found by certain bruises, and bumps, and stains of
blood, and stiffness of joints, and exhaustion, and the loss of my upper
garment, which I had then only just discovered, that I must have borne a
_pretty considerable_{5} part in the contest, and carried away no
small share of victorious laurels, since I had escaped without any very
visible demonstration of my adversaries' prowess; but for this I must
acknowledge myself indebted to my late private tutor the Eton cad,
Joe Cannon, whose fancy lectures on noseology, and the science of the
milling system, had enabled me to

4 Brandy and port wine, half and half.

5 An Oxford phrase.

~260~~defend my bread-basket, cover up my peepers, and keep my nob out
of chancery{6}: a merit that all

6 The use of a peculiar cant phraseology for different
classes, it would appear, originated with the Argoliers, a
species of French beggars or monkish impostors, who were
notorious for every thing that was bad and infamous: these
people assumed the form of a regular government, elected a
king, established a fixed code of laws, and invented a
language peculiar to themselves, constructed probably by
some of the debauched and licentious youths, who, abandoning
their scholastic studies, associated with these vagabonds.
In the poetical life of the French robber Cartouche, a
humorous account is given of the origin of the word _Argot_;
and the same author has also compiled a dictionary of the
language then in use by these people, which is annexed to
the work. Hannan, in his very singular work, published in
1566, entitled "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursitors
(runners), vulgarly called Vagabones," has described a
number of the words then in use, among what he humorously
calls the "lued lousey language of these lewtering beskes
and lasy lovrels." And it will be remembered that at that
time many of the students of our universities were among
these cursitors, as we find by an ol