26 ENGLISHSAGA

Buckinghamshire village of Hanslope: in the forty-seventh
round the Scot fell unconsicious to the ground never to rise again.
His victor perished in the ring a few years later at the end of
ninety-nine rounds.

Game to the death, such men bore little malice. Bad blood
was not allowed to grow rancid: it was let after the fashion of
the day on the green sward. A "mill" brought all the neighbours
running to see fair play and courage: afterwards the combatants
were ready enough to be friends. There was something intensely
good-humoured about that open-air, fighting England. It was
rough but it was healthy. Borrow has left us a picture of an old
prize fighter, his battles over, keeping open house in his "public"
down Holborn way, "sharp as winter, kind as spring . . .
There sits the yeoman at the end of his long room, surrounded
by his friends. Glasses are filled and a song is the cry, and a song
is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo in every heart-
fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of the mighty
fighting men of yore, Broughton and Slack and Ben, which
adorn the walls appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many
a manly voice joins in the bold chorus:

*' Here's a health to old honest John Bull,
' When he's gone we shan't find such another,
And with hearts and with glasses brini full,
We will drink to old England his mother."'

The independence of the national type matched its pugnacity.
For all the deference of traditional England to its superiors, it
was a deference strictly based on established right and custom.
It yielded little to claims based on anything else. A man owed
certain duties to Church, state and society to be performed
according to his station: when they had been fulfilled, he owed
no others. Lord Palmerston, in attendance as Foreign Secretary
at Windsor Castle, rode as befitted his office beside her Majesty's
carriage: when, however, she embarked on Virginia Water he
did not accompany her but left the royal barge to row about in
a dinghy, not choosing to miss his daily exercise. The skilled
craftsmen of Birmingham disposed of their hours of labour in a
similar spirit: when they had earned enough, they would take a
day or even a week off to drink. Even the clerks of the Bank of
England—though the new powers that were beginning to rule