Page:A Sketch of the Life of George Wilson, the Blackheath Pedestrian.djvu/8

 vests of glory on the Continent, and filled the world with their fame.

I might, then, Gentlemen, have entered the lists at Wormwood Scrubbs, and all the other fields of pugilistic contest; and possibly have challenged the proud honours of Champion of England. Magisterial wisdom might then have blinked at my error: the pacific Quorum might have looked another way; and perhaps some junior members of a certain grave profession, mindful of more juvenile diversions, and the classic pastimes of academic leisure, might have laid aside their pontificials for a day, and taken a sly peep, under the rose, at the proofs of my prowess.

But, alas, gentlemen, the fates who governed my birth, gave a different cast to my destiny, and denied me the more fortunate faculties of the fist. A rustic education, such as it was, joined to the vicissitudes of perverse fortune, led me to cultivate my talents at the wrong end; and instead of directing the cunning of my head to the lucrative profession of a gambler, or the vigour of my hands to the skill of a bruizer, I have unfortunately directed my chief attention to the agility of my legs, which are not black ones, as a very unproductive source of livelihood; but they have sometimes, though indirectly, extricated me from imprisonment and famine.

It never reached my apprehension, however, until chastised by your all-powerful authority, that walking alone on the skirt of a wild heath, remote from the ordinary intercourse of the busy throng, was a violation of public morals, or a breach of the peace. It remained for your united wisdom to enlighten my darkness on this