12, Mezza Notte

Just returned from dinner with Jackson (the Emperor of Pugilism) and another of the select, at Crib's, the champion's. I drank more than I like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret—for I have no headach. We had Tom Crib up after dinner;—very facetious, though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation—wants to fight again—pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the miller) he may! Tom has been a sailor—a coal-heaver—and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well—bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. Tom is an old friend of mine; I have seen some of his best battles in my nonage. He is now a publican, and, I fear, a sinner;—for Mrs. Crib is on alimony, and Tom's daughter lives with the champion.

This Tom told me,—Tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse. Talking of her, he said, "she was the truest of women"—from which I immediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so it turned out.

These panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;—for, if "true," a man don't think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. Crib is the only man except ——, I ever heard harangue upon his wife's virtue; and I listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when I found yawning irresistible—

By the by, I am yawning now—so, good night to thee.— Greek: Noáiron

Footnote 1:

  It is doubtful whether this is not a mistake for Greek: Noáiron, a variant of Greek: Mpairon, which is the correct transliteration into modern Greek of Byron, but the MS. is destroyed.