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Who have every thing now, as Bill Gibbons would say, «Like the bull in the china-shop, all your own way»Whatsoever employs your magnificent nobs,'

And lobsters will lie such a drug upon hand,

That our do-nothing Captains must all get japann'd!1
My eyes, how delightful!—the rabble well gagg'd,

Whether diddling your subjects, and gutting their The Swells in high feather, and old Boney lagg'd!3 fobs 2

(While you hum the poor spoonies 3 with speeches, so
pretty,

'Bout Freedom, and Order, and-all my eye, Betty)
Whether praying, or dressing, or dancing the hays,
Or lapping your congo 4 at Lord C-STL-R-GH'S 5
(While his Lordship, as usual, that very great dab6
At the flowers of rhet'ric, is flashing his gab7) —
Or holding State Dinners, to talk of the weather,
And cut up your mutton and Europe together!
Whatever your gammon, whatever your talk,
Oh deign, ye illustrious Cocks of the Walk,

To attend for a moment,-and if the Fine Arts
Of fibbing and boring§ be dear to your hearts;
If to level, to punish,8 to ruffians mankind,
And to darken their daylights,? be pleasures refined
(As they must be) for every Legitimate mind,—
Oh listen to one, who, both able and willing
To spread through creation the mysteries of milling,
(And, as to whose politics, search the world round,
Not a sturdier Pit-tite1 e'er lived under ground),
Has thought of a plan, which-excuse his presump-
tion,

Hle hereby submits to your Royal rumgumption."

It being now settled that emperors and kings,
Like kites made of foolscap, are high-flying things,
To whose tails a few millions of subjects, or so,
Have been tied in a string, to be whisk'd to and fro,
Just wherever it suits the said foolscap to go-
This being all settled, and freedom all gammon, 12
And nought but your honours worth wasting a d-n on;
While sung and secure you may now run your rigs,13
Without fear that old Boney will bother your gigs—
As your Honours, too, bless you! though all of a trade,
Yet agreeing like new ones, have lately been made
Special constables o'er us, for keeping the peace --
Let us hope now that wars and rumbustions will cease;
That soldiers and guns, like « the Devil and his works,»
Will henceforward be left to Jews, Negers, and Turks;
Till Brown Bess 4 shall soon, like Miss Tabitha Fusty,
For want of a spark to go off with, grow rusty,

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But, though we must hope for such good times as these,
Yet as something may happen to kick up a breeze-
Some quarrel reserved for your own private picking—
Some grudge, even now in your great gizzards sticking
(God knows about what-about money mayhap,
Or the Papists, or Dutch, or that kid,4 Master Nap) —
And, setting in case there should come such a rumpus,
As some mode of settling the chat we must compass,
With which the tag-rag' will have nothing to do—
What think you, great Swells, of a ROYAL SET-TO ?6
A Ring and fair fist-work at Aix-la-Chapelle,
Or at old Moulsey-Hurst, if you likes it as well-
And that all may be fair as to wind, weight, and

science,

I'll answer to train the whole HoLY ALLIANCE!
Just think, please your Majesties, how you 'd prefer it
To mills such as Waterloo, where all the merit
To vulgar red-coated rapscallions must fall,
Who have no Right Divine to have merit at all!
How much more select your own quiet Set-tos !—
Aud how vastly genteeler 't will sound in the news,
(Kent's Weekly Dispatch, that beats all others bollow
For Fancy transactions), in terms such as follow:-

ACCOUNT OF THE GRAND SET-TO BETWEEN
LONG SANDY AND GEORGY THE PORPUS.
LAST Tuesday, at Moulsey, the Balance of Power
Was settled by Twelve Tightish Rounds, in an hour-
The Buffers, both « Boys of the Holy Ground; »—8
LONG SANDY, by name of the Bear much renown'd,
And GEORGY the Porpus, prime glutton reckon'd-
Old thingummee Porrs09 was LONG SANDY's second,
And GEORGY's was Pat C-STL-R-GH,―he who lives
At the sign of the King's Arms a-kimbo, and gives
llis small beer about, with the air of a chap
Who believed it himself a prodigious strong tap.

1 Soldiers, from the colour of their clothes. To boil one's lobster | means for a churchman to turn soldier; lobsters, which are of a bluish black, being made red by boiling.-Grose. Butler's ingenious simile will occur to the reader 1

When, like a lobster boil'd, the Morn
From black to red began to turn.

2 Ordained--i. e. become clergymen.
3 Transported.

4 Child-Hence our useful word, kidnapper-to nab a kid being
to steal a child. Indeed, we need but recollect the many excellent and
necessary words to which Johnson has affixed the stigms of cast!
term, to be aware how considerably the English language has been
enriched by the contributions of the Flash fraternity.
The common people, the mobility.

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This being the first true Legitimate Match

Since Tom took to training these Swells for the scratch,
Every lover of life, that had rhino to spare,
From sly little Moses to B-R-G, was there.
Never since the renown'd days of BROUGHTON and FIGG
Was the Fanciful World in such very prime twig-
And long before daylight, gigs, rattlers,3 and prads,4
Were in motion for Moulsey, brimful of the Lads.
JACK ELD-N, Old StD., and some more, had come down
On the evening before, and put up at The Crown,——
Their old favourite sign, where themselves and their
brothers

Get grubs at cheap rate, though it fleeces all others;
Nor matters it how we plebeians condemn,

At length the two Swells having enter'd the Ring,
To the tune the Cow died of, called « God save the
King,»

Each threw up his castor1 'mid general huzzas

| And, if dressing would do, never yet, since the days
When HUMPHRIES stood up to the Israelite's thumps,
In gold-spangled stockings and touch-me-not pumps,
Has there any thing equall'd the fal-lals and tricks
That bedizen'd old GEORGY's bang up tog and kicks !3
Having first shaken daddles (to show, JACKSON said,
It was « pro bono Pimlico»3 chiefly they bled)
Both peel d6-but, on laying his Dandy-belt by,
Old GEORGY went floush, and his backers looked shy;
For they saw, notwithstanding CRIB's honest endeavour

As The Crown's always sure of its license from them. To train down the crummy,7 't was monstrous as ever!
Not so with LONG SANDY-prime meat every inch-
Which, of course, made the Gnostics on t' other side
flinch;

T was diverting to see, as one ogled around,

How Corinthians and Commoners mixed on the
ground.

Here M-NTR-SE and an Israelite met face to face,
The Duke, a place-hunter-the Jew, from Duke's Place;
While NICKY V-NS-TT-T, not caring to roam,
Got among the white-bag-men,7 and felt quite at home.
Here stood in a corner, well screen'd from the weather,
Old SID, and the great Doctor EADY together,
Both famed on the walls-with a d-n, in addition,
Prefix'd to the name of the former Physician.
Here C-MD-N, who never till now was suspected
Of Fancy, or aught that is therewith connected,
Got close to a dealer in donkies, who eyed him,
Jack Scroggins remark'd, «just as if he'd have buy'd
him;

While poor Bogy B-CE-GH-M well might look pale,
As there stood a great Rat-catcher close to his tail!

'Mongst the vehicles, too, which were many and varicus,
From natty barouche down to buggy precarious,
We twigg d more than one queerish sort of turn-out;—
CNN-G came in a job, and then canter'd about
On a showy, but hot and unsound, bit of blood
(For a leader once meant, but cast off, as not good),
Looking round to secure a snug place if he could:-
While ELD-N, long doubting between a grey nag
And a white one to mount, took his stand in a drag.8
At a quarter past ten, by Pat C-STL-R-GH'S tattler,9
CRIB came on the ground in a four-in-hand rattler
For Tom, since he took to these Holy Allies,
Is as tip-top a beau as all Bond-street supplies);
And, on seeing the CHAMPION, loud cries of «
fight, a

Fight,

Ring, ring,» « Whip the Gemmen,» were heard left
and right.

But the kids, though impatient, were doom'd to delay,
As the old P. C.1° ropes (which are now mark'd H. A.'')
Being hack'd in the service, it seems had given way;
And, as rope is an article much

up

in price

And BoB W-LS-N from Southwark, the gamest chap there,

Was now heard to sing out, « Ten to one on the Bear!»>

FIRST ROUND. Very cautious—the Kiddies both sparr'd
As if hy of the scratch-while the Porpus kept guard
O'er his beautiful mug,9 as if fearing to hazard
| One damaging touch in so dandy a mazzard.
Which t' other observing put in his ONE-Two1
Between GEORGY's left ribs, with a knuckle so true,
That had his heart lain in the right place, no doubt
But the Bear's double-knock would have rummaged it

out

As it was, Master GEORGY came souse with the whack, And there sprawl'd, like a turtle turn'd queer on its back.

SECOND ROUND. Rather sprightly—the Bear, in high gig,
Took a fancy to flirt with the Porpus's wig;
And, had it been either a loose tie or bob,
He'd have claw'd it clean off, but 't was glued to his
nob.

So he tipp'd him a settler they call « a Spoil-Dandy»
Full plump in the whisker.-High betting on Sandy.

THIRD ROUND. Somewhat slack-GEORGY tried to make play,

But his own victualling office11 stood much in the way;

. Hat.

1. The fine manly form of Humphries was seen to great advantage; be bad on a pair of fine flannel drawers, white silk stockings, the clocks of which were spangled with gold, and pumps tied with ribbon.. -(Account of the First Battle between Humphries and Mendoza.)The epistle which Humphries wrote to a friend, communicating the result of this fight, is worthy of a Lacedæmonian. Sir, I have done the Jew, and am in good health. Rich. Humphries..

3. Tog and kicks, coat and breeches.—Tog is one of the cant words which Dekker cites, as retaining a certain salt and tasting of some

Since the Bank took to hanging, the lads had to splice. wit and learning, being derived from the Latin toga.

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4 Hands.

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While SANDY's long arms-long enough for a douse
All the way from Kamschatka to Johnny Groat's
House-

Kept paddling about the poor Porpus's muns,'

Till they made him as hot and as cross as Lent buns!*

To office, with all due dispatch, through the air,
To the Bulls of the Alley the fate of the Bear
(For in these Fancy times, 't is your hits in the muns,
And your choppers, and floorers, that govern the Funds)—
And Consols, which had been all day shy enough,
When 't was known in the Alley that Old Blue and Buff

FOURTH ROUND. GEORGY'S backers look'd blank at the Had been down on the Bear, rose at once-up to snuff!1 lad,

When they saw what a rum knack of shifting3 he hadAn old trick of his youth-but the Bear, up to slum, Follow'd close on my gentleman, kneading his crum As expertly as any Dead Mans about town,

All the way to the ropes-where, as GEORGY went down, SANDY tipp'd him a dose of that kind, that, when taken, It is n't the stuff, but the patient that's shaken.

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JACK ELD-N, with others, came close to the ropesAnd when GEORGY, one time, got the head of the Bear Into Chancery" ELD-N sung out KEEP him there;" But the cull broke away, as he would from Lob's pound,12

And, after a rum sort of ruffianing Round,
Like cronies they hugg'd, and came smack to the ground;
Poor SANDY the undermost, smother'd and spread
Like a German tuck'd under his huge feather-bed! 13
All pitied the patient-and loud exclamations,

My eyes!" and " my wig!" spoke the general sen

sations

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3. Some have censured shifting as an unmanly custom.-Boxiana. 4 Humbug or gammon.

10

5 Dead Men are Bakers-so called from the loaves falsely charged their master's customers. The following is from an Acount of the Battle fought by Nosworthy, the Baker, with Martin, the Jew:

First round. Nosworthy, on the alert, planted a tremendous hit on Martin's mouth, which not only drawed forth a profusion of claret. but he went down.-Loul shouting from the Dead Men!

« Second Round. Nosworthy began to serve the Jew in style, and bis hits told most tremendously. Martin made a good round of it, but fell rather distressed. The Dead Men now opened their mouths wide, and loudly offered six to four on the Master of the Rolls! 7 The stomach.

6 The head.

The mouth.

10 Novices.

9 The eyes.

11 Getting the head under the arm, for the purpose of fibbing. 12 A prison.-See Dr Grey's explanation of this phrase in his notes upon Hudibras.

13 The Germans sleep between two beds. and it is related that an Irish traveller, upon tnding a feather bed bus laid over him, took it into his head that the people slept in strata, one upon the other, and said to the attendant, will you be good enough to tell the gentleman or lady that is to he over me, to make baste, as I want to go asleep!

SEVENTH ROUND. Though hot-press'd, and as flat as a crumpet,

LONG SANDY Show'd game again, scorning to rump it ;
And, fixing his eye ou the Porpus's snout,3
Which he knew that Adonis felt peery about,
By a feint, truly elegant, tipp'd him a punch in
The critical place, where he cupboards his luncheon,
Which knock'd all the rich Curaçoa into cruds,
And doubled him up, like a bag of old duds!5
There he lay almost frummagem'd—every one said
T was all Dicky with GEORGY, his mug hung so dead:
And it was only by calling « your wife, Sir, your wife!a
(As a man would cry « fire!») they could start him to

life.

Up he rose in a funk,7 lapp'd a toothful of brandy, And to it again.-Any odds upon SANDY.

EIGHTH ROUND. SANDY work'd like a first-rate demolisher:

Bear as he is, yet his lick is no polisher;

And, take him at ruffianing work (though in commoa,

he

Hums about Peace and all that, like a Domine)8
SANDY'S the boy, if once to it they fall,

That will play up old gooseberry soon with them all.
This round was but short-after humouring awhile,
He proceeded to serve an ejectment, in style,
Upon GEORGY'S frout grinders,9 which damaged his

smile

So completely, that bets ran a hundred to ten
The Adonis would ne'er flash his ivory 10 again-
And 't was pretty to see him roll'd round with the shock.
Like a cask of fresh blubber in old Greenland Dock!

NINTH ROUND. One of GEORGY's bright ogles" was put
On the bankruptcy list, with its shop-windows shut;
While the other soon made quite as tag-rag a show,
All rimm'd round with black, like the Courier in woe!
Much alarm was now seen 'mong the Israelite Kids,
Aud B-R-G,-the devil's own boy for the quids,1?—
Dispatch'd off a pigeon (the species, no doubt,

That they call B-R-G's stock-dove) with word « to sell

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With grinders dislodg'd and with peepers both As for backers, you 've lots of Big-wigs about Court,
poach'd,'
That will back you-the raff being tired of that sport,-
T was not till the Tenth Round his claret? was broach'd: | And if quids should be wanting to make the matchi
As the cellarage lay so deep down in the fat,

good,

Like his old M--a's purse, 't was cursed hard to get at. There's B-R-NG, the Prince of Rag Rhino, who stood

But a pelt in the smellers3 (too pretty to shun,

If the lad even could) set it going like fun;
And this being the first Royal Claret let flow,
Since Tom took the Holy Alliance in tow,
The uncorking produced much sensation about,
As bets had been flush on the first painted snout.
Nota bene.-A note was wing'd off to the Square,
Just to hint of this awful phlebotomy there;-
BOB GREGSON, whose wit at such things is exceeding,4
Inclosing a large sprig of « Love lies a bleeding!»

In short, not to dwell on each facer and fall, Poor GEORGY was done up in no time at all, And his spunkiest backers were forced to sing small.5 In vain did they try to fig up the old lad, T was like using persuaders upon a dead prad;7 In vain Bogy B-CK-GH-M foudly besought him, To show like himself, if not game, at least bottom; While M—AL—Y, that very great Count, stood deploring He had n't taught GEORGY his new modes of boring: 9 All useless-no art can transmogrify truth

It was plain the conceit was mill'd out of the youth. In the Twelfth and Last Round SANDY fetch'd him a downer,

That left him all's one as cold meat for the Crowner;10 On which the whole populace flash'd the white grin Like a basket of chips, and poor GEORGY gave in:** While the fiddlers (old Porrs having tipp'd them a bandy)

13

Play'd « <«<Green grow the rushes,»13 in honour of SANDY!

Now, what say your Majesties?—is n't this prime?
Was there ever French Bulletin half so sublime?
Or could old NAP himself, in his glory, '4 have wish'd
To show up a fat Gemman more handsomely dish'd'
Oh, bless your great hearts, let them say what they will,
Nothing's half so genteel as a regular Mill;
And, for settling of balances, all I know is,
Tis the way CALEB BALDWIN prefers settling his.15

↑ French cant; Les yeux poches au beurre noir.-See the Dictionnaire Comique.

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14 See Appendix, No 5.

15 A trifling instance of which is recorded in Boxiana: A fracas occurred between Caleb Baldwin and the keepers of the gate. The latter not immediately recognizing the veteran of the ring, refused his vehicle admittance without the usual tip; but Caleb, finding argufy. ang the topic would not do, instead of paying them in the new coinage, dealt out another sort of currency, and, although destitute of the W. W. P. it had such an instantaneous effect upon the Johnny Kaws, that the gate flew open, and Caleb rode through in triumph,

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But, barring these nat'ral defects (which, I feel, My remarking on thus may be thought ungenteel), And allowing for delicate fams,7 which have merely Been handling the sceptre, and that, too, but queerly, I'm not without hopes, and would stand a tight bet, That I'll make something game of your Majesties yet. So, say but the word-if you 're up to the freak, Let us have a prime match of it, Greek against Greek, And I'll put you on beef-steaks and sweating next week

While, for teaching you every perfection, that throws a Renown upon milling-the tact of MENDOZA

The charm, by which HUMPHRIES8 contrived to infuse The three Graces themselves into all his One-TwosThe nobbers of JOHNSON 9-BIG BEN'S 10 banging brain

blows

The weaving of SAM,11 that turn'd faces to rainbows-
Old CORCORAN'S click,1 that laid customers flat-
PADDY RYAN from Dublin's12 renown'd « coup de Pat; »
And my own improved method of tickling a rib,
You may always command

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The extreme rigour, in these respects, of the ancient system of training, may be inferred from the instances mentioned by Alian. Not only pugilists, bat even players on the harp, were, during the time of their probation, συνουσίας αμαθείς και απείρου. De Animal lib. 6. cap. 1.

4 A Jew, so nick-named-one of the Big ones. Crib, on Blackheath, in the year 1805. $ Sleeping.

Fams or fambles, bands.

Feeding.

He was beaten by

Humphries was called The Gentleman Boxer.. He was (says the author of Boxiana) remarkably graceful, and his attitudes were of the most elegant and impressive nature.

Tom Johnson, who, till his fight with Big Ben, was hailed as the Champion of England,

19 Ben Brain, alias Big Ben, wore the honours of the Championship till his death.

11 Dutch Sam, a hero, of whom all the lovers of the Fancy speak, as the Swedes do of Charles the Twelfth, with tears in their eyes.

13 Celebrated Irish pugilists.

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« Gemmen,» SIys he-Tom's words, you know,
Come like his hitting, strong; but slow-
Seeing as how those Swells, that made
Old Boney quit the hammering trade
(All prime oues in their own conceit),
Will shortly at THE CONGRESS meet-
(Some place that 's like THE FINISH,7 lads,
Where all your high pedestrian pads,

1 So called in his double capacity of Boxer and Coppersmith. The passage in Pindar, from which the following lines of Hark, the merry Christ Church Bells, are evidently borrowed;

The devil a man

Will leave his can,

Till he hears the Mighty Tom.

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That have been up and out all night,

Running their rigs among the rattlers,1 At morning meet, and-honour brightAgree to share the blunt and tattlers! 2)Seeing as how, I say, these Swells

Are soon to meet, by special summons,
To chime together like hell's bells,'

And laugh at all mankind as rum ones-
I see no reason, when such things
Are going on among these Kings,
Why We, who 're of the Fancy lay,3
As dead hands at a mill as they,
And quite as ready, after it,
To share the spoil and grab the bit,4
Should not be there to join the chat,
To see, at least, what fun they 're at,
And help their Majesties to find
New modes of punishing mankind.
What say you, lads? is any spark
Among you ready for a lark 5
To this same Congress?-CALEB, JOE,
BILL, BOB, what say you?-yes or no?»
Thus spoke the CHAMPION, Prime of
men,

And loud and long we cheer'd his prattle With shouts, that thunder'd through the ken,6

And made Tom's Sunday tea-things rattle!

A pause ensued-'till cries of « Gregson » Brought Bon, the Poet, on his legs soon(My eyes, how prettily Bob writes!

Talk of your Camels, Hogs, and Crabs,7
And twenty more such Pidcock frights-
BOB's worth a hundred of these dabs:
For a short turn up at a sounet,

A round of odes, or Pastoral bout,
All Lombard-street to nine-pence on it,9
BOBBY'S the boy would clean them out!)
« Gemmen,» says he-(BoB's eloquence
Lies much in C-NN-G's line, 't is said,
For, when Boв can't afford us sense,
He tips us poetry, instead—)

« Gemmen, before I touch the matter,
On which I'm here had
up for patter,10
A few short words I first must spare,
To him, THE HERO, that sits there,
Swigging Blue Ruin," in that chair.
(Hear-hear)-His fame I need not tell,

For that, my friends, all England 's loud with

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several of these fanciful forms of betting sentry-box, Pompey's Pillar to a stick of sealing-wax, eir,

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