Page 143, line 115. down from the fly-sticking of Domitian, the molecatching of Artabanus, the hog-mimicking of Parme- No one can suspect Boileau of a sneer at his royal nides, the horse-currying of Aretas, to the petticoat-master, but the following lines, intended for praise, embroidering of Ferdinand, and the patience-playing look very like one. Describing the celebrated passage of the Pe R――t! of the Rhine, during which Louis remained on the safe side of the river, he says, Page 140, line 15. Your curst tea and toast. Is Mr Bob aware that his contempt for tea renders him liable to a charge of atheism? Such, at least, is the opinion cited in Christian. Falster. Amanitat. Philolog.- Atheum interpretabatur hominem ab herba The aversum. »> He would not, I think, have been so irreverent to this beverage of scholars, if he had read Peter Petit's Poem in praise of Tea, addressed to the learned Huet-or the Epigraph which Pechlinus wrote for an altar he meant to dedicate to this herb-or the Anacreontics of Peter Francius, in which he calls Tea Θεαν, θεην, θεαιναν. The following passage from one of these Anacreontics will, I have no doubt, be gratifying to all true Theists. Θεοις, θεων τε πατρι Which may be thus translated: Yes, let Hebe, ever young, Page 141, line 86. Here break we off, at this unhallow'd name. The late Lord C. of Ireland had a curious theory about names;-he held that every man with three names was a jacobin. His instances in Ireland were numerous :-viz. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, James Napper Tandy, John Philpot Curran, etc. etc. and, in England, he produced as examples Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Joha Horne Tooke, Francis Burdett Jones, etc. etc. The Romans called a thief « homo trium literarum. Tuo' trium literarum homo Me vituperas! Fur.! Plantas, Aulular. Act. 2. Scene 4 The Testament, turn'd into melo-drames nightly. « The Old Testament,» says the theatrical Critic in the Gazette de France, «< is a mine of gold for the managers of our small play-houses. A multitude crowd round the Theatre de la Gaité every evening to see the Passage of the Red Sea." In the play-bill of one of these sacred melo-drames at Vienna, we find « The Voice of G-d, by Mr. Schwartz.» 1 Dussaldeur supposes this word to be a glossema '——that is, be thinks Fur has made has escape from the margin into the text. Louis, les animant du feu de son courage, Se plaint de sa grandeur, qui l'attache au rivage. Epit. 4. Page 144, line 43. Turns from his victims to his glees, And has them both well executed. How amply these two propensities of the Noble Lord would have been gratified among that ancient people of Etruria, who, as Aristotle tells us, used to whip their slaves once a year to the sound of flutes! Page 148.-line 6. Lampreys, indeed, seem to have been always a favourite dish with Kings-whether from some congeniality between them and that fish, I know not; but Dio Cassius tells us that Pollio fattened his lampreys with human blood. St. Louis of France was particularly fond of them.-See the anecdote of Thomas Aquinas eating up his majesty's lamprey, in a note upon Rabelais, liv. 3. chap. 2. Page 148, line 14. Till five o'clock brings on that hour so momentous. Had Mr Bob's Dinner Epistle been inserted, I was prepared with an abundance of learned matter to illus trate it, for which, as indeed, for all my scientia popinæ,» I am indebted to a friend in the Dublin University,-whose reading formerly lay in the magic line; but, in consequence of the Provost's enlightened alarm at such studies, he has taken to the authors « de re cibaria» instead; and has left Bodin, Remigius, Agrippa, and his little dog Filiolus, for Apicius, Nonius, and that most learned and savoury jesuit, Bulengerus. Page 151, line 89. Live bullion, says mere less Bob, which I think Mr. Bob need not be ashamed of his cookery jokes, when he is kept in countenance by such men as Cicero, St Augustine, and that jovial bishop, Venantius Fortunatus. The pun of the great orator upon the « jus Verrinum,» which he calls bad hog broth, from a play upon both the words, is well known; and the Saint's puns upon the conversion of Lot's wife into salt are equally ingenious:-« In salem conversa hominibus fidelibus quoddam præstitit condimentum, quo sapiant aliquid, unde illud caveatur exemplum.»-De Civitat. Dei, lib. 16. cap. 30.-The jokes of the pious favourite of Queen Radagunda, the convivial Bishop Venantius, may be found among his poems, in some lines against a cook who had robbed him. The following is similar to Cicero's pun. Plus juscella Coci quam mea jura valet. See his poems, Corpus Petar. Latin. Tom. 2. p, 1732. -Of the same kind was Montmaur's joke, when a dish was spilt over him—« summum jus, summa injuria; » and the same celebrated parasite, in ordering a sole to be placed before him, said, Eligi cui dicas, tu mihi sola places 1 Seneca The reader may likewise see, among a good deal of kitchen erudition, the learned Lipsius's jokes on cutting up a capon, in his Saturnal. Sermon. lib. 2. cap. 2. Page 157, line 17. Upon singing and cookery, Bount, of course, Cookery has been dignified by the researches of a Bacon (see his Natural History, Receipts, etc.); and takes it station as one of the Fine Arts in the following passage of Mr Dugald Stewart.—« Agreeably to this view of the subject, sweet may be said to be intrinsically pleasing, and bitter to be relatively pleasing; which both are, in many cases, equally essential to those effects, which, in the art of cookery, correspond to that composite beauty, which is the object of the painter and of the poet to create.»-Philosophical Essays. Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress. Αλλ' ουκ οιοι ΠΥΚΤΙΚΗΣ ΠΛΕΟΝ ΜΕΤΕΧΕΙΝ τους πλουσίους επιστημη τε και εμπειρία Η PLATO de Rep. lib. 4. If any man doubt the significancy of the language, we refer him tothe third volume of Reports, set forth by the learned in the BEN JONSON. PREFACE. long to have such influence upon the affairs of the world, I have, for some time past, been employed in a voluminous and elaborate work, entitled « A Parallel THE Public have already been informed, through the between Ancient and Modern Pugilism,» which is now medium of the daily prints, that, among the distin-in a state of considerable forwardness, and which I guished visitors to the Congress lately held at Aix-la-hope to have ready for delivery to subscribers on the Chapelle, were Mr BOB GREGSON, Mr GEORGE COOPER, morning of the approaching fight between Randall and a few more illustrious brethren of THE FANCY. Tt had been resolved at a Grand Meeting of the Pugilistic Fraternity, that, as all the milling Powers of Europe were about to assemble, personally or by deputy, at Aix-la-Chapelle, it was but right that THE FANCY should have its representatives there as well as the rest, and these gentlemen were accordingly selected for that high and honorable office. A description of this Meeting, of the speeches spoken, the resolutions, etc. etc. has been given in a letter written by one of the most eminent of the profession, which will be found in the Appendix. No. I. Mr CRIB'S Memorial, which now for the first time meets the public eve, was drawn up for the purpose of being transmitted by these gentlemen to Congress; and, as it could not possibly be in better hands for the enforcement of every point connected with the subject. there is every reason to hope that it has made a suitable impression upon that body. The favour into which this branch of Gymnastics, called Pugilism (from the Greek už, as the author of Boxiana learnedly observes), has risen with the Public of late years, and the long season of tranquillity which we are now promised by the new Millennarians of the Holy League, encourage us to look forward with some degree of sanguineness to an order of things, like that which PLATO and TOM CRIB have described (the former in the motto prefixed to this work, and the latter in the interesting Memorial that follows), when the Milling shall succeed to the Military system, and Tur FANCY will be the sole arbitress of the trifling disputes of mankind From a wish to throw every possible hight on the history of an Art, which is destined ere and Martin. Had the elegant author of Boxiana extended his inquiries to the ancient state of the art, I should not have presumed to interfere with a historian so competent. But, as his researches into antiquity have gone no farther than the one valuable specimen of erudition which I have given above, I feel the less hesi tation novos decerpere flores, Insignemque men caniti petere inde coronam. Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Mose. 1 LUCKET. lib 4. v. 3. The variety of studies necessary for such a task, and the multiplicity of references which it requires, as well 1 To wander through The FANCY's bowers, 2 The residence of the Nonpareil, Jack Randall, bere, the day alter his last great victory, he held a levee, which was attended, of course, by all the leading charaters of St Giles's. with similar hallucinations. The Mil. Glorios. of Plautus he converted, the other day, into a Glorious Mill: and more than once, when I have referred to Tom. prim. or Tom. quart. he has substituted Tom Crib and Tom Oliver in their places. Notwithstanding all this, the work will be found, I trust, tolerably correct; and as an Analysis of its opening Chapters may not only gratify the impatience of the Fanciful World, but save my future reviewers some trouble, it is here given as succinctly as possible. rived to drag; and whence, also, a flash etymologist might contrive to derive dpapa, drama, Thespis having first performed in a drag. This chapter will be found highly curious; and distinguished, I flatter myself, by much of that acuteness which enabled a late illustrious Professor to discover that our English « Son of a Gun» was nothing more than the Is Tuvys (Dor.) of the Greeks. Chap. 4. enumerates the many celebrated Boxers of antiquity.-Eryx (grandson of the Amycus already mentioned), whom Hercules is said to have finished in style.-Phrynon, the Athenian General, and Autolycus, of whom, Pausanias tells us, there was a statue in the Prytaneum-The celebrated Pugilist, who, at the very moment he was expiring, had game enough to make his adversary give in; which interesting circumstance forms the subject of one of the Pictures of Philostratus, Icon. lib. 2. imag. 6.—and above all, that renowned Son of the Fancy, Melancomas, the favourite of the Emperor Titus, in whose praise Dio Chrysostomus has left us two elaborate orations. 2— The peculiarities of this boxer discussed-his power of standing with his arms extended for two whole days, every avaтstanas тas xelpas, nas our an elder without any rest (δύνατος ny, says Dio, και δυο ημερας ουδεις ύφεντα αυτον η αναπαυσάμενον ὥσπερ ειώθασι. Orat. 28), by which means he wore out his adversary's Chap. 1. contains some account of the ancient in ventors of pugilism, Epeus and Amycus.-The early exploit of the former, in milling his twin-brother, in ventre matris, and so getting before him into the world, as related by Eustathius on the authority of Lycophron. -Amycus, a Royal Amateur of THE FANCY, who challenged to the scratch all strangers that landed on his shore. The Combat between him and Pollux (who, to use the classic phrase, served him out), as described by Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, 2 and Valerius Flaccus,3 -Respective merits of these three descriptions.-Theocritus by far the best; and, altogether, perhaps, the most scientific account of a Boxing-match in all antiquity.-Apollonius ought to have done better, with such a model before him; but, evidently not up to then thing (whatever Scaliger may say), and his similes all slum.4—Valerius Flaccus, the first Latin Epic Poet after Virgil, has done ample justice to this Set-to: feints, facers, and ribbers, all described most spiritedly. Chap. 2. proves that the Pancratium of the ancients, as combining boxing and wrestling, was the branch of their Gymnastics that most resembled our modern Pugilism; cross-buttocking for what the Greeks called Tock) being as indispensable an ingredient as nobbing, flooring, etc. etc.-Their ideas of a stand-up fight were very similar to our own, as appears from the το παίειν αλλήλους ΟΡΘΟΣΤΑΔΗΝ of Lucian, περι Γυμνας. 4 Except one. BoUTUTTOS oia, which is good, and which Fawkes, therefore, has omitted. The following couplet from his translation is, however, fanciful enough So from their batter'd cheeks loud echoes sprung. Lib. 4. v. 290. Et pater orantes casorum Tartarus umbras V. 158. bottom, and conquered without either giving or taking. This bloodless system of milling, which trusted for victory to patience alone, has afforded to the orator, Themistins, a happy illustration of the peaceful conquests which he attributes to the Emperor Valens, 3 Chap. 5 notices some curious points of similarity between the ancient and modern FANCY.—Thus, Theocri tus. in his Milling-match, calls Amycus « a glutton,» which is well known to be the classical phrase at Moulsex-Hurst, for one who, like Amycus, takes a deal of punishment before he is satisfied. Πως γαρ δὴ Διος υἱος ΑΔΗΦΑΓΟΝ ανδρα καθείλεν. In the same Idyl the poet describes the Bebrycian hero as gas puer, «drunk with blows.» which is pre cisely the language of our Fancy bulletins; for example` «Turner appeared as if drunk, and made a heavy lolloping hit,» 4 etc. etc.-The resemblance in the manner of fighting still more striking and important. Thus we find CRIB's favourite system of milling on the retreat, which he practised so successfully in his combats with Gregson and Molyneux, adopted by Alcidamus, the Spar The flash term for a cart. The following words, in which Dio so decidedly prefers the art of the Boter to that of the soldier would perhaps have been a still more significant metto to Mr Crib's Memorial than that which I have chosen from Pluto: Και καθόλου δε εγωγε τούτο της εν ταις πολέμοις αρέτης προκρίνου. 3. Ην τις επι των προγόνων των ημετέρων πύκτης avne, Merayxoμas ovoμa auta.. . . . . . . ούτος ουδένα πωποτε τρώσας, ουδε πατάξας, μόνη τη ςάσει και τη των χειρών αναστάσει παντας απέκνοις τους αντιπα λους.-THEMIST. Orat. περὶ Ειρήνης. 4 Kent's Weekly Dispatch Chap. 6. proves, from the jawing-match and Set-to between Ulysses and the Beggar in the 18th Book of the Odyssey, that the ancients (notwithstanding their dinara paxovvæv, or Laws of Combatants, which, Artemidorus savs in his chap. 33. πeps Movoμxx. extended to pugilism as well as other kinds of combats) did not properly understand fair play; as Ulysses is here obliged to require an oath from the standers-by, that they will not deal him a sly knock, while he is cleaning out the mumper— Μη τις επ' Ιρα για φέρων εμε χειρι παχείη Πλήξη ατασθαλλων, τούτῳ δε με ιφι δάμαστη. Chap. 7. describes the Cestus, and shows that the Greeks, for mere exercise of sparring, made use of muffles or gloves, as we do. which they called apa. This appears particularly from a passage in Plato, de Leg. lib. 8, where, speaking of training, he says, it is only by frequent use of the gloves that a knowledge of stopping and hitting can be acquired. The whole passage is curious, as proving that the Divine Plato was not altogether a novice in the Fancy lay A-Kas τατα του όμοιου, αντι έμαντων ΣΦΑΙΡΑΣ 21 sdovuda, ò-wc ai ПAHTAI e xa a TON ПAHΤΩΝ ΕΥΛΑΒΕΙΑΙ διεμελετώντο εις τι δύνατον ἱκαras.-These muffles were called by the Romans sacculi, as we find from Trebellius Pollio, who, in describing a triumph of Gallienus, mentions the Pugiles sacculis non veritate pugilantes.» Chap. 8. adverts to the pugilistic exhibitions of the Spartan ladies, which Propertius has thus commemo rated 3 The Flash term for a negro, and also for a chimney-sweeper. 4 Another ph losopher, Seneca, has shown himself equally flash on the subject, and, in his 13th Epistle, lave it down as an axiom, that no pugilist can be considered worth any thing, till he has had his perpers taken measure of for a suit of m woning or, in common language, has received a pair of black eyes. The whole passer is edifying :- Non potest athleta magnos spiritus ad certamen afferre, qui nunquam sugillatus est. Ille qui videt sanguinem suum, cujus dentes crepuerunt sub pugno, ille que supplantitus adversarium toto tulit corpore, nec project imumam projectus, qui quoties coalt contumacies 163QLExit cum majoa ste descendit al pu, um stance recorded in Boxiana:-«George Madox, in this battle, was seconded by his sister, Grace, who, upon its conclusion, tossed up her hat in defiance, and offered to fight any man present ;»-also the memorable challenge, given in the same work (vol. i. p. 300), which passed between Mrs Elizabeth Wilkinson of Clerkenwell, and Miss Hannah Hyfield of Newgate-Market-another proof that the English may boast many a « dolce guerriera as well as the Greeks. Chap. q. contains Accounts of all the celebrated Settos of antiquity, translated from the works of the different authors that have described them,-viz. the famous Argonautic Battle, as detailed by the three poets mentioned in chap. 1.-the Fight between Epens and Euryalus, in the 23d Book of the Iliad, and between Ulysses and Irus in the 18th Book of the Odyssey-the Combat of Dares and Entellus in the 5th Eneid-of Capaneus and Alcidamus, already referred to, in Statius, and of Achelous and Hercules in the oth Book of the Metamorphoses; though this last is rather a wrestlingbout than a mill, resembling that between Hercules and Antaus in the 4th Book of Lucan. The reader who is anxious to know how I have succeeded in this part of Virgil in the Appendix to the present work, No. 2. my task, will find, as a specimen, my translation from Chap. 10. considers the various arguments for and against Pugilism, advanced by writers ancient and modern.-A strange instance of either ignorance or wilful falsehood in Lucian, who, in his Anacharsis, has represented Solon as one of the warmest advocates for Pugilism, whereas we know from Diogenes Laertius that that legislator took every possible pains to discourage and suppress it.-Alexander the Great, too, tasteless enough to prohibit THE FANCY (Plutarch in lit.).—Galen in many parts of his works, but particularly in the Hortat, ad Art. condemns the practice as enervating and pernicious. On the other side, the testimonies in its favour, numerous.-The greater number of Pindar's Nemean Odes written in praise of pugilistic champions; -and Isocrates, though he represents Alcibiades as despising the art, yet acknowledges that its professors were held in high estimation through Greece, and that those cities, where victorious pugilists were born, became illustrious from that circumstance; 3 just as Bristol has been rendered immortal by the production of such heroes as Tom Crib, Harry Harmer, Big Ben, Dutch Sam. etc. etc.--Ammianus Marcellinus tells us how much that religious and pugnacious Emperor, Constantius Though wrestling as evidently the favourite sport of Hercules we find him, in the Alcestes just returned from a Bruising-match and it is a curious proof of the superior consideration in which these arts were held, that for the 1ghter exercises, he tells us, horses alone were the reward, while to conquerors in the higher games of puși ́em and wrestling, whole herds of cattle (with sometimes a young lady into the bargain) were given prizes. delighted in the Set-tos, « pugilum vicissim se conci- Head's English Rogue, which was published, I believe, dentium perfusorumque sanguine.»>-To these are ad-in 1666, would be intelligible to a Greek of the present ded still more flattering testimonies; such as that of day; though it must be confessed that the Songs which Isidorus, who calls Pugilism «virtus,» as if par excel-both he and Dekker have given would puzzle even that lence; and the yet more enthusiastic tribute with « Graiæ gentis decus,» Caleb Baldwin himself. For inwhich Eustathius reproaches the Pagans of having en- stance, one of the simplest begins, rolled their Boxers in the number of the Gods.-In short, the whole chapter is full of erudition and vous; -from Lycophron (whose very name smacks of pugilism) down to Boxiana and the Weekly Dispatch, not an author on the subject is omitted. Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure, Secure this hand shall his whole frame confound, Cowper, in the same manner, translates ↓ do.... pov, «pash'd him on the check; and, in describing the wrestling-match, makes use of a term, now more properly applied to a peculiar kind of blow,' of which Mendoza is supposed to have been the in ventor. Then his wiles To the cultivation, in our times, of the science of Pugilism, the Flash language is indebted for a considerSo much for my « Parallel between Ancient and Mo-able addition to its treasures. Indeed, so impossible dern Pugilism.» And now with respect to that peculiar is it to describe the operations of THE FANCY without language called Flash, or St Giles's Greek, in which Mr words of proportionate energy to do justice to the subCrib's Memorial and the other articles in the present|ject, that we find Pope and Cowper, in their translation volume are written, I beg to trouble the reader with a of the Set-to in the Iliad, pressing words into the serfew observations. As this expressive language was ori-vice which had seldom, I think, if ever, been enlisted ginally invented, and is still used, like the cipher of the into the ranks of poetry before. Thus Pope, diplomatists, for purposes of secrecy, and as a means of eluding the vigilance of a certain class of persons, called flashice, Traps, or, in common language, Bowstreet Officers, it is subject of course to continual change, and is perpetually either altering the meaning of old words, or adding new ones, according as the great object, secrecy, renders it prudent to have recourse to such innovations. In this respect, also, it resembles the cryptography of kings and ambassadors, who by a continual change of cipher contrive to baffle the inquisitiveness of the enemy. But, notwithstanding the Protean nature of the Flash or Cant language, the Before I conclude this Preface, which has already I greater part of its vocabulary has remained unchanged fear extended to an unconscionable length, I cannot for centuries, and many of the words used by the Caut-help expressing my regret at the selection which Mr ing Beggars in Beaumont and Fletcher,3 and the Gipsies in Ben Jonson's Masque, are still to be heard among the Gnostics of Dyot-street and Tothili-fields. To prig is still to steal, to fib, to beat; lour, money; duds, clothes;6 prancers, horses; bouzing-ken, an ale-house; cove, a fellow; a sow's baby, a pig; etc. etc. There are also several instances of the same term, preserved with a totally different signification. Thus, to mill, which was originally « to rob,» 7 is now « to beat or fight;» and the word rum, which in Ben Jonson's time, and even so late as Grose, meant fine and good, is now generally used for the very opposite qualities; as, he's but a rum one,» etc. Most of the Cant phrases in Notwithstanding that the historian expressly says pugilum, Lipsius is so anxious to press this circumstance into his Account of the Ancient Gladiators, that he insists such an effusion of claret could only have taken place in the gladiatorial combat. But Lipsius never was at Moulsey Hurst.-See his Saturnal. Sermon, lib. i. cap. 2. * Origin. lib. xviii. e. 18. * In their amusing comedy of The Beggar's Bush.. The Masque of the Gipsies Metamorphosed.-The Gipsy language. indeed, with the exception of such terms as relate to their own peculiar customs, differs but little from the regular Flash; as may be seen by consulting the Vocabulary subjoined to the Life of BamfyldeMoore Cares. 5 See the third chapter, 1st book of the History of Jonathan Wild, for an undeniable testimony of the great antiquity of Priggism, An angler for duds is thus described by Dekker-He carries a short staff in his band, which is called a filch, having in the sab or bead of it, a ferme (that is to say a hole), into which, upon any piece of service, when he goes a filching, he putteth a booke, of iron, with which booke he angles at a window in the dead of night for shirts, smockes, or any other linen or woollea..—English Villanies. ? Can they cant or mill? are they masters in their art?-Ben JonTo mill, however, sometimes signified to kill.. Thus, to mill a bleating cheat, i. e, to kill a sheep. son. Forgat not be, but on the ham behind Crib has made of one of the Combatants introduced into the imaginary Set-to that follows. That person has already been exhibited, perhaps, «usque ad nauseam,» before the Public; and, without entering into the propriety of meddling with such a personage at all, it is certain that, as a mere matter of taste, he ought now to be let alone. All that can be alleged for Mr Crib is-what Rabelais has said in defending the moral notions of another kind of cattle-he «knows no better.»>< But for myself, in my editorial capacity, I take this opportunity of declaring, that, as far as I am concerned, the person in question shall henceforward be safe and inviolate; and, as the Covent-Garden Managers said, when they withdrew their much-hissed elephant, this is positively the last time of his appearing on the stage. |