" but all ineffectually. They seemed to be quite secure from each other's efforts, as long as they but held by the arm and breast-collar, as ordinary wrestlers do. A new grip was to be effected. Cann liberated one arm of his adversary to seize him by the cape behind: at that instant Warren, profiting by his inclined posture, and his long arms, threw himself round the body of the Devon champion, and fairly lifted him a foot from the ground, clutching him in his arms with the grasp of a second Anteæus.-The Cornish men shouted aloud, "Well done, Warren!' to their hero, whose naturally pale visage glowed with the hope of success. He seemed to have his opponent at his will, and to be fit to fling him, as Hercules flung Lycas, any how he pleased. Devonshire then trembled for its champion, and was mute. Indeed it was a moment of heart-quaking suspense.-But Cann was not daunted; his countenance expressed anxiety, but not discomfiture. He was off terra-firma, clasped in the embrace of a powerful man, who waited but a single struggle of his, to pitch him more effectually from him to the ground.— Without straining to disengage himself, Cann with unimaginable dexterity glued his back firmly to his opponent's chest, lacing his feet round the other's kneejoints, and throwing one arm backward over Warren's shoulder, so as to keep his own enormous shoulders pressed upon the breast of his uplifter. In this position they stood at least twenty seconds, each labouring in one continuous strain, to bend the other, one backwards, the other forwards.-Such a struggle could not last. Warren, with the weight of the other upon his stomach and chest, and an inconceivable stress upon his spine, felt his balance almost gone, as the energetic movements of his countenance indicated. -His feet too were motionless by the coil of his adversary's legs round his; so to save himself from falling backwards, he stiffened his whole body from the ankles upwards, and these last being the only liberated joints, he inclined forwards from them, so as to project both bodies, and prostrate them in one column to the ground together.-It was like the slow and poising fall of an undermined tower. -You had time to contemplate the injury which Cann the undermost would sustain if they fell in that solid, unbending posture to the earth. But Cann ceased bearing upon the spine as soon as he found his supporter going in an adverse direction. With a presence of mind unrateable, he relaxed his strain upon one of his adversary's stretched legs, forcing the other outwards with all the might of his foot, and pressing his elbow upon the opposite shoulder. This was sufficient to whisk his man undermost the instant he unstiffened his knee-which Warren did not do until more than half way to the ground, when from the acquired rapidity of the falling bodies nothing was discernible. At the end of the fall, Warren was seen sprawling on his back, and Cann whom he had liberated to save himself, had been thrown a few yards off on allfours. Of course the victory should have been adjudged to this last. When the partial referree was appealed to, he decided, that it was not a fair fall, as only one shoulder had bulged the ground, though there was evidence on the back of Warren that both had touched it pretty rudely.-After much debating a new referree was appointed, and the old one expelled; when the candidates again entered the lists. The crowning beauty of the whole was, that the second fail was precisely a counterpart of the other. Warren made the same move, only lifting his antagonist higher, with a view to throw the upper part of his frame out of play. Cann turned himself exactly in the same manner using much greater effort than before, and apparently more put to it, by his opponent's great strength. His share, however, in upsetting his supporter was greater this time, as he relaxed one leg much sooner, and adhered closer to the chest during the fall; for at the close he was seen uppermost, still coiled round his supine adversary, who admitted the fall, starting up, and offering his hand to the victor. He is a good wrestler too -so good, that we much question the authority of "The Times," for saying that he is not one of the crack wrestlers of Cornwall-From his amazing strength, with common skill he should be a firstrate man at this play, but his skill is much greater than his countrymen seemed inclined to admit.-Certain it is, they destined him the first prize, and had Cann not come up to save the honour of his county, for that was his only inducement, the four prizes, by judiciously matching the candidates, would no doubt have been given to natives of Cornwall. BLACKFORD, THE BACKSWORD PLAYER. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Sir,-Your correspondent C. T. p. 1207, having given a description of "Purton Fair," my grandmother and father born there, the birth-place of Anne Boleyn, I feel interested in the spot of my progenitors. C. T., speaking of old " Corey Dyne," the gipsy, says a man named Blackford was the most noted Backswordplayer of his day. He bore off the prizes then played for in London, Bath, Bristol, and Gloucester. When very young, at Lyneham grammar-school, I recollect this frontispiece despoiler broke fourteen heads, one after another; in the fifteenth bout, however, he pretty nearly found his match in the person of Isaac Bushel, a blacksmith of this place, who could bite a nail asunder, eat a shoulder of mutton with appendages, or fight friend or foe for love or money. It was a saying, "Bushel could take enough to kill a dozen men;" nor was his head unlike his name: he was the village Wat Tyler. When the Somerset youths played with the Wiltshire on a stage on Calne-green, two years since, one of Blackford's descendants gave a feeling proof of headbreaking with other heads of this bloodletting art, in which stratagem is used to conceal the crimson gush chiefly by sucking. Like fencing, attitude and agility are the great assistants to ensure success in backsword-playing; the basket is also of great service to the receiving of blows, and protecting the muscles of the wrist. The greatest exploits remembered at Pur AUTUMNAL FEELINGS. For the Every-Day Book. The flowers are gone, the trees are bare, A damp that in the spirit sinks, Till the shudd'ring heart within me shrinks: Cold and slow the clouds roll past, And wat'ry drops come with the blast Every bird to his home has gone, There he sits like a desolate thing, With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing, Yet his heart is lighter far than mine; His strong-wing'd race on the wind have gone, He has still the hope of a friendly crumb And the welcome looks of faces kind. I wander here amid the blast, And a dreary look I backward cast; And I look to the coming time with dread Where the flower of hope alone was green; To expect from kindred's sympathy. Like the leaves now whirl'd from yonder spray, Yet I despair not-time will bring A warmer breeze to the now chill'd flower, And happier days, I trust, to me. 'Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprung With my heart's few flowers, while yet 'twas young, NALURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature. . . . 50. 77. October 21. BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR. In a dreadful engagement off Cape Trafalgar, on the 21st of October, 1805, between the English fleet, consisting of twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates, and the combined fleets of France and Spain, consisting of thirty-three sail and seven frigates, which lasted four hours, twenty sail of the enemy were unk or destroyed, and the French commander-in-chief, (admiral Villeneuve,) with two Spanish admirals, were made prisoners. The gallant Nelson wounded about the middle of the action, and died nearly at its close." Thus terminated the brilliant career of our peerless NAVAL HERO, who was, beyond dispute, preeminent in courage, in a department of the British service where all our countrymen are proverbially courageous: who, to unrivalled courage, united was S. R. J. skill equally conspicuous and extraor dinary; who, in consequence of these rare endowments, never led on our fleets to battle that he did not conquer; and whose name was a tower of strength to England, and a terror to her foes." NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. October 22. CHILD PLAYED FOR. In October, 1735, a child of James and Elizabeth Leesh, of Chester-le-street, in the county of Durham, was played for at cards, at the sign of the Salmon, one game, four shillings against the child, by Henry and John Trotter, Robert Thomson, and Thomas Ellison, which was won by the latter, and delivered to them accordingly.† NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Butler's Chronological Exercises. ROMAN REMAINS AT PANCRAS. A former notice of some antiquities in this vicinity, seems to have occasioned the subjoined article on similar remains. Its initials will be recognised as those of a correspondent, whose communications have been acceptable, and read with in terest. ROMAN REMAINS AT PANCRAS. SIR,-In the ninetieth number of your Every-Day Book, (the present volume, col. 1197-1204,) a very interesting article appeared on the subject of the Roman remains near Pentonville, and thinking you may be inclined to acquaint your readers with "Cæsar's Camp" at St. Pancras, situate near the old church, which are likely in the course of a short time to be entirely destroyed by the rage for improvement in that neighbourhood, I forward you the following particulars. The only part at present visible is the prætorium of Cæsar, which may be seen in the drawing that accompanies this, but the ditch is now nearly filled up. Í visited the spot about a week ago, and can therefore vouch for its existence up to that time, but every thing around it be gins to bear a very different aspect to what it did about two years back, when my attention was particularly called to the spot from having read Dr. Stukeley's remarks on the subject. At that time I was able to trace several other vestiges, which are entirely destroyed by the ground having been since dug up for the purpose of making bricks. The following extracts are taken from the second volume of Dr. Stukeley's Itinerary." The plan of the camp is taken from the same work. I shall feel pleasure if you will call attention to it, as you have already to the Roman remains at Pentonville. When I came attentively to consider the situation of it, and the circumjacent ground, I easily discerned the traces of his whole camp. A great many ditches or divisions of the pastures retain footsteps of the plan of the camp, agreeable to their usual form, as in the plate engraved; and whenever I take a walk thither, I enjoy a visionary scene of the whole camp of Cæsar as described in the plate before us; a scene just as if beheld, and Cæsar present. His army consisted of forty thousand men. Four legions with his horse. The camp is in length five hundred paces-the thirty paces beyond, for the way between the tents and vallum, (where a vallum is made,) amounts to five hundred and sixty, so that the proportion of length to breadtà is as three to two. This space of ground was sufficient for Cæsar's army according to Roman discipline, for if he had forty thousand men, a third part of them were upon guard. The front of the camp is bounded by a spring with a little current of water running from the west, across the Brill, into the Fleet brook. This Brill was the occasion of the road directly from the city, originally going alongside the brook by Bagnigge; the way to Highgate being at first by Copenhagen-house, which is straight road thither from Gray's-inn-lade. This camp has the brook running quite through the middle of it: it arises from seven springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate by Caen wood, where it forms several large ponds, passes by here by the name of Fleet, washes the west side of the city of London, and gives name to Fleet-street. This brook was formerly called the river of wells, from the many springs above, which our ancestors called wells; and it may be thought to have been more considerable in former times than at present, for now the major part of its water is carried off in pipes to furnish Kentish-town, Pancras, and Tottenham-court; but even now in great rains the valley is covered over with water. Go a quarter of a mile higher towards Kentish-town and you may have a just notion of its appearance at that place, only with this difference, that it is there broader and deeper from the current of so many years. It must further be considered that the channel of this brook through so many centuries, and by its being made the public north road from London to Highgate, is very much lowered |