Note 571 — CANTO THE ELEVENTH.
Reading edition
The advance of science and of language has rendered it unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was very popular at least in my early days:—
"On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, In spite of each gallows old scout; If you at the spellken can't hustle, You'll be hobbled in making a clout. Then your blowing will wax gallows haughty, When she hears of your scaly mistake, She'll surely turn snitch for the forty— That her Jack may be regular weight."
If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour, and athletic as well as mental accomplishments.
[Gentleman Jackson was of good renown. "Servility," says Egan (Life in London, 1823, p. 217), "is not known to him. Flattery he detests. Integrity, impartiality, good-nature, and manliness, are the corner-stones of his understanding." Byron once said of him that "his manners were infinitely superior to those of the Fellows of the College whom I meet at the high table" (J.W. Clark, Cambridge, 1890, p. 140). (See, too, letter to John Jackson, September 18, 1808, Letters, 1898, i. 189, note 2; Hints from Horace, line 638, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 433, note 3.) As to the stanza quoted by Egan (Anecdotes of the Turf, 1827, p. 44), but not traduced or interpreted, "To be hobbled for making a clout" is to be taken into custody for stealing a handkerchief, to "turn snitch" is to inform, and the "forty" is the £40 offered for the detection of a capital crime, and shared by the police or Bow Street runners. Dangerous characters were let alone and tacitly encouraged to continue their career of crime, until the measure of their iniquity was full, and they "weighed forty." If Jack was clumsy enough to be detected in a trifling theft, his "blowen" would go over to the enemy, and betray him for the sake of the Government reward (see Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose, 1823, art. "Weigh forty").]