The four _jack_ knaves, _jack_-a-lents, _jack_-a-dandies, _jack_-a-nasties, and _jacks_-in-office (_jack_-an-apeses every man _jack_ of them), with that name fraught with mysterious terror, _Jack_ Ketch, are the scape-graces of this numerous family; and, at every _Jack_ who would be the gentleman, at a saucy _Jack_ who attempts to play the _jack_ with us, our indignation rises, like that of Juliet's nurse. But, on the whole, _Jack_ is an honest fellow, who does his work in this life, though he has been reproached with Tom's helping him to do nothing; but let the house that Jack built vindicate him from this calumny. _Jack_, we repeat, is an honest fellow, and is so more especially, when as _Jack_-tar (Heaven protect him from _Jack_-sharks both on sea and shore!) he has old Ocean beneath, and the union-_jack_ above him. Of black and yellow _jack_, who are foreigners, we make no mention; neither of _Jack_-Spaniards, nor of _Jacko_ the monkey, whom we detest; but, go where we will, _Jack_ meets us, and is master of all trades, for that we hold to be the right, though, we are aware, not the usual version of the saying. In short, with Merry _Andrews_, _Jerry_ Sneaks, _Tom_ Noddies, and Silly _Simons_, we may all have a casual acquaintance; but _Jack_, sweet _Jack_, kind _Jack_, honest _Jack_, _Jack_ still is our familiar. JOHN JACKSON. [Footnote 1: Jack and Gill were measures. "Wherefore," says Grumio, "be the Jacks fair within and the Gills fair without," meaning the leathern jacks clean within, and the metal gills polished without.] [Footnote 2: His character has suffered by antiquarian research, which tells us that the song was made on a Colonel Horner, intrusted by the last Abbot of Wells with a pie, containing the title-deeds of the abbey, which he was to deliver to Henry VIII., and that he abstracted one for his own purposes, whereupon the abbot was hanged.] [Footnote 3: The old name for pancakes. Slap-_jacks_ is their present name in America.] [Footnote 4: The figure which struck the hour, as on the old clocks of St. Dunstan's, and of Carfax in Oxford.] * * * * * MYTHE VERSUS MYTH.