The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 98

[568] [According to the _Vocabulary of the Flash Language_, compiled by James Hardy Vaux, in 1812, and published at the end of his Memoirs, 1819, ii. 149-227, a kiddy, or "flash-kiddy," is a thief of the lower orders, who, when he is _breeched_ by a course of successful depredation dresses in the extreme of vulgar gentility, and affects a knowingness in his air and conversation. A "swell" or "rank swell" ("_real_ swell"

appears in Egan's _Life in London_) is the more recent "toff;" and "flash" is "fly," "down," or "awake," _i.e._ knowing, not easily imposed upon.]

{432}[569] [_Hamlet_, act v. sc. 1, line 21.]

[570] ["Ken" is a house, s.c. a thieves' lodging-house; "spellken," a play-house; "high toby-spice" is robbery on horseback, as distinguished from "spice," i.e. footpad robbery; to "flash the muzzle" is to show off the face, to swagger openly; "blowing" or "blowen" is a doxy or trull; and "nutty" is, conjointly, amorous and fascinating.]

[kl]

_Poor Tom was once a knowing one in town_.

_Not a mere_ kiddy, _but a_ real _one_.--[MS. erased.]

[571] 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 _Cla.s.sical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, by Francis Grose, 1823, art. "Weigh forty").]

{433}[572] [Don Juan must have driven by _Pleasant Row_, and pa.s.sed within hail of _Paradise Row_, on the way from Kennington to Westminster Bridge. (See Cary's _New Pocket Plan of London, Westminster, and Southwark_, 1819.) But, perhaps, there is more in the names of streets and places than meets the eye. Here, as elsewhere, there is, or there may be, "a paltering with us in a double sense."]

[km]

_Through rows called "Paradise," by way of showing_ _Good Christians that to which they all are going_.--[MS. erased.]

{434}[573] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto 1. stanza lxix. line 8, var.

ii., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 66, note 2.]

[kn]---- _distilling into the re-kindling gla.s.s_.--[MS.]

[574] [The streets of London were first regularly lighted with gas in 1812.]

{435}[575] [Thomas Pennant, in _Some Account of London_, 1793, p. 444.

writes down the Mansion House (1739-1752) as "d.a.m.ned ... to everlasting fame."]

[576] [Fifty years ago "the lights of Piccadilly" were still regarded as one of the "sights" of London. Byron must often have looked at them from his house in Piccadilly Terrace.]

[577] [Joseph Francois Foulon, army commissioner, provoked the penalty of the "lantern" (i.e. an improvised gallows on the yard of a lamp-post at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie) by his heartless sneer, "Eh bien! si cette canaille n'a pas de pain, elle mangera du foin." He was hanged, July 22, 1789. See _The Tale of Two Cities_, by Charles d.i.c.kens, cap. xxii.; see, too, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, 1839, i. 253: "With wild yells, Sansculottism clutches him, in its hundred hands: he is whirled ... to the _'Lanterne,'_ ... pleading bitterly for life,--to the deaf winds. Only with the third rope (for two ropes broke, and the quavering voice still pleaded), can he be so much as got hanged! His Body is dragged through the streets; his Head goes aloft on a pike, the mouth filled with gra.s.s: amid sounds as of Tophet, from a gra.s.s-eating people."]

{436}[578] "h.e.l.ls," gaming-houses. What their number may now be in this life, I know not. Before I was of age I knew them pretty accurately, both "gold" and "silver." I was once nearly called out by an acquaintance, because when he asked me where I thought that his soul would be found hereafter, I answered, "In Silver h.e.l.l."

[ko]

_At length the boys drew up before a door_, _From whence poured forth a tribe of well-clad waiters_; (_While on the pavement many a hungry w--re_ _With which the moralest of cities caters_ _For gentlemen whose pa.s.sions may boil o'er,_ _Stood as the unpacking gathered more spectators,_) _And Juan found himself in an extensive_ _Apartment;--fas.h.i.+onable but expensive_.--[MS.]

{437}[kp] _'Twas one of the delightfullest hotels_.--[MS.]

[579] [Perhaps Grillion's Hotel (afterwards Grillion's Club) in Albemarle Street. In 1822 diplomats patronized more than one hotel in and near St. James's Street, but among the "Departures from Grillion's Hotel," recorded in the _Morning Chronicle_ of September, 17, 1822, appositely enough, is that of H.E. Don Juan Garcia, del Rio.]

[kq]

---- _of his loves and wars_; _And as romantic heads are pretty painters,_ _And ladies like a little spice of Mars_.--[MS. erased.]

{438}[kr] _The false attempt at Truth_----.--[MS.]

{439}[580] [Compare--

"Lo! Erin, thy Lord!

Kiss his foot with thy blessing"----

_The Irish Avatar_, stanza 14, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 558.]

[ks]

_Kiss hands--or feet--or what Man by and by_ Will _kiss, not in sad metaphor--but earnest,_ _Unless on Tyrants' sterns--we turn the sternest_.--[MS.]

{440}[581] "Anent" was a Scotch phrase meaning "concerning"--"with regard to: "it has been made English by the Scotch novels; and, as the Frenchman said, "If it _be not, ought to be_ English." [See, for instance, _The Abbot_, chap. xvii. 132.]

[kt]

_But "Damme's" simple--das.h.i.+ng--free and daring_ _The purest blasphemy_----.--[MS.]

[ku]

_About such general matters--but particular_ _A poem's progress should be perpendicular_.--[MS.]

{441}[582] [_Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 4, line 63.]

[kv] _Blushed, too, but it was hidden by their rouge_.--[MS. erased.]

[kw] _The natural and the prepared ceruse_.--[MS. erased.]

{442}[583] "Drapery Misses."--This term is probably anything now but a _mystery_. It was, however, almost so to me when I first returned from the East in 1811-1812. It means a pretty, a high-born, a fas.h.i.+onable young female, well instructed by her friends, and furnished by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by the _husband_. The riddle was first read to me by a young and pretty heiress, on my praising the "drapery" of the _"untochered"_ but "pretty virginities" (like Mrs. Anne Page) of the _then_ day, which has now been some years yesterday: she a.s.sured me that the thing was common in London; and as her own thousands, and blooming looks, and rich simplicity of array, put any suspicion in her own case out of the question, I confess I gave some credit to the allegation. If necessary, authorities might be cited; in which case I could quote both "drapery"

and the wearers. Let us hope, however, that it is now obsolete.

[584] [Compare _Hints from Horace_, line 173, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i.

401, note 1.]

{443}[585] [In his so-called "Dedication" of _Marino Faliero_ to Goethe, Byron makes fun of the "nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets," whose names were to be found in _A Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors, etc._ (See Introduction to _Marino Faliero, Poetical Works_, 1901, iv.

340, 341, note 1.)]

{444}[kx] _A paper potentate_----.--[MS. erased.]

[586] [See "Introduction to _Cain_," _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 204.]

[ky] _With turnkey Southey for my Hudson Lowe._--[MS.]

[kz] _Beneath the reverend Cambyses Croly._--[MS.]

[587] [The Reverend George Croly, D.D. (1780-1860), began his literary career as dramatic critic of the _Times_. "Croly," says H.C. Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, i. 412), "is a fierce-looking Irishman, very lively in conversation, and certainly has considerable talents as a writer; his eloquence, like his person, is rather energetic than eloquent" (hence the epithet "Cambyses," i.e. "King Cambyses' vein" in _var._ iii.). "He wrote tragedies, comedies, and novels; and, at last, settled down as a preacher, with the rank of doctor, but of what faculty I do not know"

(ibid., footnote, H.C.R., 1847). He wrote, _inter alia_, _Paris in 1815_, a poem; _Catiline, A Tragedy_, 1822; and _Salathiel_, a novel, 1827. In lines 7, 8, Byron seems to refer to _The Angel of the World, An Arabian Poem_, published in 1820.]

[588] [_I Henry IV._, act ii. sc. 4, line 197.]