He attracted almost as much attention as Englishmen have recently given to Sullivan. Tom Cribb undoubtedly had been the leading boxer in his time; but he had retired from the ring several years before Donnelly's visit to England.
England was in straits for a man able to meet Donnelly. It was looked upon even by the government as dangerous, politically, to allow the Irishman to again defeat a British champion.
At length a strong and able boxer, Oliver, was found to take up Donnelly's challenge. When the match was made, the chances of the fight filled the Three Kingdoms once more with matter for earnest discussion. It was said that one hundred thousand pounds (five hundred thousand dollars) were laid in bets on the battle. Every man in Ireland who had a pound to spare backed Dan Donnelly; and the "nobility and gentry" stood open-handed behind Oliver.
The national battle came off on July 21, 1819, within thirty miles of London. "Donnelly, on stripping," says the English report, "exhibited as fine a picture of the human frame as can well be imagined; indeed, if a sculptor had wished a living model to display the action of the muscles, a finer subject than Donnelly could not have been found. Oliver was equally fine. . . . He dis-
