The Bruiser Bruisd; Or, the Knowing-Ones Taken-in
attributed to Louis Philippe Boitard
1750
British Museum 1868,0808.3905
This scene shows the defeat of pugilist Jack Broughton by the butcher Jack Slack in April 1750 at Broughton’s Amphitheatre in Oxford Road, London. Broughton had previously secured the patronage of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (suppressor of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745–46), who is reported to have lost £1,000 on the match, and thereafter lost interest in supporting Broughton.
The poem underneath the image reads:
Vain-Glory should be foil'd & Coxcombs known:
The Knowing Ones here sought to Gull the Town.
In Different Modes are England's Fools display'd
Some strut in Rags, some flutter in Brocade.
Those Who abroad the Sword durst never use
At Home their boasted Courage will abuse.They run from Quiberon and Fontenoy,
But Here each other cowardly destroy.
The Prince of Bruisers by Vain Glory hurt
Has laid at last his Conquests in the Dirt
Where's now thy Cestus. All thy Triumph's gone.
Mourn for thy Motto, and thy Sign pull down.
© The Trustees of the British Museum in the UK
This image is provided courtesy of the British Museum under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. In certain other jurisdictions faithful digital reproductions of public domain works are considered to be in the public domain.