Brewer's: Sixteen-string Jack

John Rann, a highwayman, noted for his foppery. He wore sixteen tags, eight at each knee. (Hanged in 1774.)

“Dr. Johnson said that Gray's poetry towered above the ordinary run of verse as Sixteen-string Jack above the ordinary foot-pad.” —Bosioell: Life of Johnson.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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