subs. (old).—A serving merry-andrew; a low-class buffoon. Fr., jean-pottage (= jack-soup); Ger., Hans-wurst (= jack-sausage); Dutch, pickelherringe; It. macaroni. Hence JACK-PUDDINGHOOD (WALPOLE) = buffoonery.
1650–51. MILTON, Defence of People of England, i. The extempore rhymes of some antic JACK-PUDDING may deserve printing better.
1653. ASTON COKAYNE, ‘On Mr. Richard Brome’s Playes.’
| Our theatres of lower note in those | |
| More happy daies shall scorn the rustic prose | |
| Of a JACK-PUDDING. |
1664. ETHEREGE, The Comical Revenge, iii. 4, in Wks. (1704), 35.
| He was JACK-PUDDING to a | |
| Mountebank, and turn’d off for want of wit. |
1670. EACHARD, The Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion, in ARBER’S Garner, vii., p. 265. Those usually that have been Rope Dancers in the Schools, oft times prove JACK-PUDDINGS in the Pulpit.
1672. WYCHERLEY, Love in a Wood, i. 2. He is a mere buffoon, a JACK-PUDDING.
1691–2. Gentlemen’s Journal, Jan., p. 35. All its inhabitants are JACK-PUDDINGS born.
1757. FOOTE, The Author [1782], 46. A JACK-PUDDING! that takes fillips on the nose for sixpence a piece.
1772. G. A. STEVENS, Songs, Comic and Satyrical, ‘The Dream.’
| So JACK PUDDINGS joke, with distorted grimace, | |
| Benetting their Gudgeons,—the Croud. |
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1795. R. CUMBERLAND, The Jew, iv. 2. Sheva. You are a saucy knave to make a joke of your master. Do you think I will keep a JACK-PUDDING in my house like you, to listen at my keyhole and betray my conversation.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
1824. SCOTT, St. Ronan’s Well, iii. The JACK-PUDDING to the company, whose business it was to crack the best joke, and sing the best song, he could.
1849. MACAULAY, The History of England, vi. Booth had bitterly complained to the Commons that the dearest of his constituents were entrusted to a drunken JACK-PUDDING.
1881. BESANT and RICE, The Chaplain of the Fleet, I. x. They were again jocund, light-hearted, the oracle of the tavern, the jester and JACK-PUDDING of the feast.
