Henry Fielding

“ Adams staggered at the violence of the
blow, when, throwing away his staff, he likewise clenched that fist
which we have before commemorated, and would have discharged it full in
the breast of his antagonist, had he not dexterously caught it with his
left hand, at the same time darting his head (which some modern heroes
of the lower class use, like the battering-ram of the ancients, for a
weapon of offence; another reason to admire the cunningness of Nature,
in composing it of those impenetrable materials) ; dashing his head, I
say, into the stomach of Adams, he tumbled him on his back ”

“ Adams answered, "That would be too severe; that men did not
make themselves; and if fear had too much ascendance in the mind, the
man was rather to be pitied than abhorred; that reason and time might
teach him to subdue it." He said, "A man might be a coward at one time,
and brave at another. ”

“ As a game cock, when engaged in amorous toying with a hen, if perchance
he espies another cock at hand, immediately quits his female, and
opposes himself to his rival, so did the ravisher, on the information of
the crabstick, immediately leap from the woman and hasten to assail the
man. He had no weapons but what Nature had furnished him with. However,
he clenched his fist, and presently darted it at that part of Adams's
breast where the heart is lodged. ”