Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
In returning to the younger days of the “finest formed man in Europe,”
we shall take the liberty of borrowing a graphic colloquial sketch from
the lips of a veteran: “There were the Lades, the Hangers, the Bullocks,
the Vernons, but give me Jack Jackson, as he stood alone amid the
throng. I can see him now, as I saw him in ’84, walking down Holborn
Hill, towards Smithfield. He had on a scarlet coat, worked in gold at
the buttonholes, ruffles, and frill of fine lace, a small white stock,
no collar (they were not then invented), a looped hat with a broad black
band, buff knee-breeches, and long silk strings, striped white silk
stockings, pumps, and paste buckles; his waistcoat was pale blue satin,
sprigged with white. It was impossible to look on his fine ample chest,
his noble shoulders, his waist, (if anything too small), his large, but
not too large hips (the fulcrum of the human form, whether male or
female), his limbs, his balustrade calf and beautifully turned but not
over delicate ankle, his firm foot, and peculiarly small hand, without
thinking that nature had sent him on earth as a model. On he went at a
good five miles and a half an hour, the envy of all men, and the
admiration of all women.”
As regards his face nature had not been bountiful; his forehead was
rather low, and the mode he wore his hair made it peculiarly so. His
cheek bones were high, and his nose and mouth coarse. His ears projected
too much from his head, but his eyes were eyes to look at rather than
look with; they were full and piercing, and formed a great portion of
his power as a pugilist—with them he riveted his men.
Anatomists of the first standing examined Jackson, and artists and
sculptors without number took sketches and models of his arm; but it was
the extraordinary proportion of the man throughout that formed the
wonder.
After 1795 Mr. Jackson resolved to teach others the art in which he
himself excelled. For an instructor he had that invaluable requisite,
temper; he was never too fast with his pupils. This made his initiatory
lessons tedious to young gentlemen who go ahead, and it may readily be
conceived that amid the aristocracy of England he had plenty of rough
assailants to deal with. But he was always on his guard; there was no
chance of rushing suddenly in and taking Jackson by surprise—he could
not be flurried. Amid the other qualifications he had studied Lavater,
and managed to reckon up his customers at first sight, and knew what he
had to trust to. It has been said “he defied any man to hit him;” this
is the truth, but not the whole truth—he defied any man to hit him
whilst he (Jackson) stood merely on the defensive; in a fight, of
course, it is impossible to avoid being hit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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