man of Aveton Gifford, and after a most desperate contest, Cann landed him on his back.[1]
There were other mighty men of the ring, such as a blind wrestler mentioned in the ballad of "Dick Simmins." In Cornwall wrestling continues, especially at S. Columb and S. Austell, but in Devon it is extinct: it was thought brutal to hack the shins, and after the hobnailed boot, or boot hardened in blood and at the fire, was discarded, it lost its interest.
Sir Thomas Parkyns has been quoted. He published a curious work entitled The Inn Play, or Cornish Hugg Wrestler, and died in 1741. He was an enthusiast for the noble science—the Cornish, and not the Devonshire mode—and would only take into his service men who were good wrestlers. His coachman was one who had shown him the Flying Mare.
Sir Thomas, by his will, left a guinea to be wrestled for at Bradmore, Nottinghamshire, every Midsummer Day, and had his monument carved for him during his lifetime, representing him in wrestling costume, sculptured in marble by his chaplain, prepared for either the Cornish Hug or the Flying Mare. On one side is a well-limbed figure lying above the scythe of Time, the sun rising and shining on him as a wrestler in the prime of life; on the other side is the same figure stretched in a coffin, with Time triumphant above him brandishing his scythe, and the sun setting. There are Latin verses appended, that may be thus translated:—
Here lies, O Time! the victim of thy hand,
The noblest wrestler on the British strand,
His nervous arm each bold opposer quell'd,
In feats of strength by none but thee excell'd,
Till, springing up, at the last trumpet's call,
He conquers thee, who will have conquer'd all.
- ↑ For a full account, most graphically written, and from which I have quoted, see Mr. Whitfeld's Plymouth and Devonport, in War and Peace, Plymouth, 1900; also the Sporting Magazine for 1826-7; the Annual Register, 1826.
