Cosmopugilism: Thomas Moore’s Boxing Satires and the Post-Napoleonic Congresses

JULIA M. WRIGHT Cosmopugilism: Thomas Moore’s Boxing Satires and the Post-Napoleonic Congresses T homas moore’s satires were extremely popular in their day but fell into obscurity along with their topical references. Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress (1819), for instance, sold nearly two thousand copies in a matter ofdays but is now mentioned only briefly in scholarship and for its most transparent historical allusions: for its jibes at the aristocrats it all but names, and as evidence of the influence of Pierce Egan’s Boxiana (1812— 1813), especially through Regency-era boxing slang? That the poem does I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada for its generous support ofmy research, Christina Morin and Marguerite Corporaal for the kind invitation to speak at “Travelling Irishness in the Long Nineteenth Century” (August 2014), a wonderfully interdisciplinary and collegial event that gave me an excuse to focus on this project, and all who attended the conference for their responses to an early version of this essay. 1.Jane Moore, ed., The Satires of Thomas Moore, vol. 5 ofBritish Satire, 1785-1840, ed.John Strachan (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003); Pierce Egan, Boxiana; Or, Sketches ofAncient and Modern Pugilism;from the Days ofthe Renowned Broughton and Slack, to the Heroes ofthe Pres­ ent Milling AEra (London: Sherwood, Neely, andJones, 1812—13). All quotations from Moore and Boxiana are taken from these editions and cited parenthetically. J. C. Reid notes that the first volume of Boxiana was sent to subscribers in numbers begin­ ning in 1812, and “The completed volume, issued bound in 1813 and 1815, retained the 1812 title-page.” See Bucks and Bruisers: Pierce Egan and Regency England (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), 232. Reid usefully traces the complexities ofthe series’ publishing his­ tory and warns that, because the publisher held “copyright of the first three volumes and continued to issue them” in altered form, “Egan’s authentic text will be found only in edi­ tions before [1824]” (232). The influence of the series through to mid-century is evident in its imitators, including Charles Williams’s Boxiana (1815), John Badcock’s Fancy-ana; Or, a History ofPugilism (1824), and Francis Dowling’s Fistiana; Or, the Oracle of the Ring (1841), as well as a series of “Boxiana” articles in Blackwood’s. Moore notes in his journal that the Memorial was to appear on 9 March 1819 and by 14 March he “Had a letter from the Longmans to say that they had nearly sold the first edi­ tion of‘Cribb’ (2000 copies), and had worked off 2000 more as a second and third edition.” See vol. 2 of Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, ed. Lord John Russell SiR, 56 (Winter 2017) 499 500 JULIA M. WRIGHT not fit Moore’s current reputation as an Irish-Catholic nationalist song­ writer and orientalist poet has likely also contributed to its neglect. But putting the poem into the context of the 1818 Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle (the Congress of the poem’s title) and the broader tradition ofboxing satire can shed light not only on the satiric and political interests of the poem but also on the significance of the sport as a trope in Romantic-era political discourse. Despite its prominence in British material life throughout the Romantic Century (1750—1850), boxing is generally neglected in literary scholarship on the era. Important exceptions include Leo J. Henkin’s 1947 essay on “Pugilism and the Poets,” Jeffrey Robinson’s recent chapter on 1820s boxing literature, centrally William Hazlitt’s “The Fight” (1822), John Strachan’s useful survey of sports and Regency writing, and Jane Moore’s invaluable edition of Moore’s satires.2 There is also a significant body of work on Romantic-era boxing by cultural historians of various disciplines (including recent books by Jack Anderson, Kasia Boddy, James Kelly, and David Snowdon) and more specifically scholarship on race and boxing, from work byJohn Whale and Daniel O’Quinn on British parallels to the many important studies on the American context (where competi­ tive boxing was inextricable from the practice of slavery).3 Boxing was not only a popular sport but also a preferred...