MR. JOHN JACKSON, 1798.
From an original Painting in possession of Sir Henry Smythe, Bart.
There is no sense in the answer always made to this, ‘Are no men brave but boxers?’ Bravery is found in all habits, classes, circumstances, and conditions. But have habits and institutions of one sort no tendency to form it more than another? Longevity is found in persons of habits the most opposite; but are not certain habits more favourable to it than others? The courage does not arise from mere boxing, from the mere beating, or being beat, but from the sentiments excited by the contemplation and cultivation of such practices. “Will it make no difference in the mass of people, whether their amusements are all of a pacific, pleasurable, and effeminate nature; or whether they are of a sort that calls forth a continued admiration of prowess and hardihood?”
A slight anecdote, apropos of the prevalence of the taste for the use of the “muffles,” as boxing-gloves were then called, will take us back to the days when Vauxhall was in the height of its splendour. Old Tyers, then the proprietor of the Gardens, had commissioned Hayman, the painter, to panel the “Hall of British Worthies” with portraits of the heroes of our land. The gallant and good-natured Marquis of Granby was waited upon by Tyers, with a request that he would honour Hayman with a sitting. In consequence, the hero of Minden dropped in at the artist’s studio in St. Martin’s Lane. “But, Frank,” said the peer, “before I sit to you, I insist upon having a set-to with you.” Hayman, astonished at the oddity of the observation, affected not to understand his visitor, whereupon the Marquis exclaimed, “I have been told that you are one of the last boxers of the school of Broughton, and I flatter myself not altogether deficient in the pugilistic art; but since I have been in Germany I have got out of practice, therefore I want a little trial of your skill.” Hayman pleaded age and gout as obstacles to his consent. To the first the Marquis replied, “There was very little difference between them; and to the second, that he considered exercise as a specific remedy,” adding, laughing, “besides, a few rounds will cause a glow of countenance that will give animation to the canvass.” Hayman no longer resisted; the gloves were donned, and to it they went. After a good display of strength and science, Hayman delivered such a straight hit in the “breadbasket,” that down they both went with a tremendous crash. This brought up stairs the affrighted Mrs. Hayman, who found the academician and commander-in-chief rolling over each other on the carpet like two unchained bears. Frank, who was a humourist and bon vivant, often narrated this anecdote of the nobleman,
“Who filled our sign-posts then as Wellesley now,”
over a social glass at his own and his friends’ merry meetings.
We cannot but think the reader will consider these slight notices of how our fathers viewed the science of self-defence—now, for a season only, as we trust, “fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf”—as a fitting preface to the life of Jackson, who flourished in the palmy days of pugilism; one of “nature’s gentlemen,” who not only supplanted Mendoza, but took a higher position in the social scale than any boxer who preceded or followed him, no less from the firmness and urbanity of his manners, than the high requisites he possessed for shining as an athlete.
John Jackson was born in London, in 1768, and was the son of an eminent builder, by whom the arch was thrown over the Old Fleet Ditch, near the mouth of the River Fleet, flowing from the Hampstead and Highgate Hills, and crossed by bridges at Holborn and Ludgate. This forms the great sewer of Blackfriars from the north into the new Low Level, over which run Farringdon Street (the site of the old Fleet Market), and Bridge Street, leading to the splendid bridge by Cubitt, with its ugly iron companion carrying the L. C. & D. R. John Jackson’s uncles were farmers, and tenants of the Duke of Bedford and the Marquis of Hertford. Nature had bestowed upon him all those athletic requisites which constitute the beau ideal of perfect manhood. There was a happy combination of muscular development with proportionate symmetry in his frame (his height was five feet eleven, and his weight fourteen stone), which rendered him a fitting model for the sculptor, and excited the admiration of all those by whom these qualities are appreciated. At the age of nineteen he became a frequenter of the sparring schools, and displayed such talents as proved that he was destined to eclipse the most favoured of his cotemporaries; added to which, possessing as he did the suaviter in modo as well as the fortiter in re, he soon found patrons of the highest grade.
It is stated that a conversation with Colonel Harvey Aston[[60]] led to his first encounter in the prize ring. Fewterel, a Birmingham boxer, as yet unbeaten, had been the conqueror, says “Pancratia,” in eighteen battles. The meeting took place at Smitham Bottom, near Croydon, June 9th, 1788. We copy the report.
“This day there were decided three boxing matches, which had been long depending, and great bets were depending on. The first was between Jackson, a fine young man of nineteen years only, and Fewterel,[[61]] of Birmingham. Tom Johnson seconded Jackson, and Bill Warr, Fewterel; Humphries and Dunn were the bottle-holders. Fewterel is a man of extremely great bulk, so much so that, at first setting-to, it was doubted whether Jackson would ever level such an opponent. Yet this he never failed to do when he could plant his blows at distance. The contest lasted one hour and seven minutes; its decision being very much procrastinated by Fewterel fighting shifty, getting down to avoid a blow, and then remaining so long on the floor as often to require the interposition of the umpires to remind his seconds of ‘time.’ Fewterel at last gave up the contest, and Major Hanger, by command of the Prince of Wales, who was present, gave young Jackson a bank note.”[[62]]