'Public expectation,' says _The Oracle_, a contemporary newspaper, 'never was raised so high by any pugilistic contest; great bets were laid, and it is estimated L20,000 was wagered on this occasion.' Ben Brain was the undisputed conqueror, we are told, in eighteen rounds, occupying no more than twenty-one minutes.[78] Brain died in 1794, and all the biographers tell of the piety of his end, so that Borrow's father may have read the Bible to him in his last moments, as Borrow avers,[79] but I very much doubt the accuracy of the following: Honour to Brain, who four months after the event which I have now narrated was champion of England, having conquered the heroic Johnson.

Honour to Brain, who, at the end of other four months, worn out by the dreadful blows which he had received in his manly combats, expired in the arms of my father, who read the Bible to him in his latter moments--Big Ben Brain.
We have already shown that Brain lived for four years after his fight with Johnson.

Perhaps the fight in Hyde Park between Borrow's father and Ben, as narrated in _Lavengro_, is all romancing.

It makes good reading in any case, as does Borrow's eulogy of some of his own contemporaries of the prize-ring: So the bruisers of England are come to be present at the grand fight speedily coming off; there they are met in the precincts of the old town, near the field of the chapel, planted with tender saplings at the restoration of sporting Charles, which are now become venerable elms as high as many a steeple.

There they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where a retired coachman, with one leg, keeps an hotel and a bowling-green.