/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
The Milling Match
The Milling Match
1819
By THOMAS MOORE in Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress:—“Account of the Milling-match
between Entellus and Dares, translated from
the Fifth Book of the Aeneid by One of the
Fancy”.
With daddles high upraised, and nob held back,
1 hands; head
In awful prescience of the impending thwack,
Both kiddies stood—and with prelusive spar,
2 fellows, usually young fellows
And light manoeuvring, kindled up the war!
The One, in bloom of youth—a light-weight blade—
The Other, vast, gigantic, as if made,
Express, by Nature, for the hammering trade;
3 pugilism
But aged, slow, with stiff limbs, tottering much,
And lungs, that lack’d the bellows-mender’s touch.
Yet, sprightly to the scratch, both Buffers came,
4 men
While ribbers rung from each resounding frame,
And divers digs, and many a ponderous pelt,
Were on their broad bread-baskets heard and felt.
5 stomachs
With roving aim, but aim that rarely miss’d
Round lugs and ogles flew the frequent fist;
6 ears and eyes
While showers of facers told so deadly well,
That the crush’d jaw-bones crackled as they fell!
But firmly stood Entellus—and still bright,
Though bent by age, with all the Fancy’s light,
7 [Notes]
Stopp’d with a skill, and rallied with a fire
The immortal Fancy could alone inspire!
While Dares, shifting round, with looks of thought.
An opening to the cove’s huge carcass sought
(Like General Preston, in that awful hour,
When on one leg he hopp’d to—take the Tower!),
And here, and there, explored with active fin,
And skilful feint, some guardless pass to win,
And prove a boring guest when once let in.
And now Entellus, with an eye that plann’d
Punishing deeds, high raised his heavy hand;
But ere the sledge came down, young Dares spied
Its shadow o’er his brow, and slipped aside—
So nimbly slipp’d, that the vain nobber pass’d
Through empty air; and He, so high, so vast,
Who dealt the stroke, came thundering to the ground!—
Not B-ck—gh-m himself, with balkier sound,
Uprooted from the field of Whiggist glories,
Fell souse, of late, among the astonish’d Tories!
Instant the ring was broke, and shouts and yells
From Trojan Flashmen and Sicilian Swells
Fill’d the wide heaven—while, touch’d with grief to see
His pall, well-known through many a lark and spree,
8 friend; frolic
Thus rumly floor’d, the kind Ascestes ran,
9 heavily
And pitying rais’d from earth the game old man.
Uncow’d, undamaged to the sport he came,
His limbs all muscle, and his soul all flame.
The memory of his milling glories past,
10 fighting
The shame that aught but death should see him grass’d.
All fired the veteran’s pluck—with fury flush’d,
Full on his light-limb’d customer he rush’d,—
And hammering right and left, with ponderous swing
11 dealing blows
Ruffian’d the reeling youngster round the ring—
Nor rest, nor pause, nor breathing-time was given
But, rapid as the rattling hail from heaven
Beats on the house-top, showers of Randall’s shot
Around the Trojan’s lugs fell peppering hot!
’Till now Aeneas, fill’d with anxious dread,
Rush’d in between them, and, with words well-bred,
Preserved alike the peace and Dares’ head,
Both which the veteran much inclined to break—
Then kindly thus the punish’d youth bespake:
“Poor Johnny Raw! what madness could impel
So rum a Flat to face so prime a Swell?
See’st thou not, boy, the Fancy, heavenly maid,
Herself descends to this great Hammerer’s aid,
And, singling him from all her flash adorers,
Shines in his hits, and thunders in his floorers?
Then, yield thee, youth,—nor such a spooney be,
To think mere man can mill a Deity!”
Thus spoke the chief—and now, the scrimmage o’er,
His faithful pals the done-up Dares bore
Back to his home, with tottering gams, sunk heart,
And muns and noddle pink’d in every part.
While from his gob the guggling claret gush’d
12 blood
And lots of grinders, from their sockets crush’d
13 teeth
Forth with the crimson tide in rattling fragments rush’d!
Notes
Tom Cribb’s Memorial to Congress: With a Preface, Notes, and
Appendix. By One of the Fancy. London, Longmans & Co., 1819. There
were several editions. Usually, with good reason, ascribed to Thomas
Moore. It may be remarked that, though the Irish Anacreon’s claim to
fame rests avowedly on his more serious contributions to literature,
he was, nevertheless, never so popular as when dealing with what, in
the early part of the present century, was known as THE FANCY.
Pugilism then took the place, in the popular mind, that football and
cricket now occupy. Tom Cribb was born at Hanham in the parish of
Bitton, Gloucestershire, in 1781, and coming to London at the age of
thirteen followed the trade of a bell-hanger, then became a porter at
the public wharves, and was afterwards a sailor. From the fact of his
having worked as a coal porter he became known as the ‘Black Diamond,’
and under this appellation he fought his first public battle against
George Maddox at Wood Green on 7 Jan. 1805, when after seventy-six
rounds he was proclaimed the victor, and received much praise for his
coolness and temper under very unfair treatment. In 1807 he was
introduced to Captain Barclay, who, quickly perceiving his natural
good qualities, took him in hand, and trained him under his own eye.
He won the championship from Bob Gregson in 1808 but in 1809 he was
beaten by Jem Belcher. He subsequently regained the belt. After an
unsuccessful venture as a coal merchant at Hungerford Wharf, London,
he underwent the usual metamorphosis from a pugilist to a publican,
and took the Golden Lion in Southwark; but finding this position too
far eastward for his aristocratic patrons he removed to the King’s
Arms at the corner of Duke Street and King Street, St. James’s, and
subsequently, in 1828, to the Union Arms, 26 Panton Street, Haymarket.
On 24 Jan. 1821 it was decided that Cribb, having held the
championship for nearly ten years without receiving a challenge, ought
not to be expected to fight any more, and was to be permitted to hold
the title of champion for the remainder of his life. On the day of the
coronation of George IV, Cribb, dressed as a page, was among the
prizefighters engaged to guard the entrance to Westminster Hall. His
declining years were disturbed by domestic troubles and severe
pecuniary losses, and in 1839 he was obliged to give up the Union Arms
to his creditors. He died in the house of his son, a baker in the High
Street, Woolwich, on 11 May 1848, aged 67, and was buried in Woolwich
churchyard, where, in 1851, a monument representing a lion grieving
over the ashes of a hero was erected to his memory. As a professor of
his art he was matchless, and in his observance of fair play he was
never excelled; he bore a character of unimpeachable integrity and
unquestionable humanity.
Taken from
Musa Pedestris,
Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
[1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.
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