An arch waggish fellow. In pickle, or in the pickling tub; in a salivation. There are rods in brine, or pickle, for him; a punishment awaits him, or is prepared for him. Pickle herring; the zany or merry andrew of a mountebank. See Jack Pudding.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Picking * Pickt HatchNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes