An inquiry in the Etymology of foreign vulgar secret tongues, and their analogy with that spoken in England, would be curious and interesting in the extreme, but neither present space nor personal acquirements permit of the task, and therefore the writer confines himself to a short account of the origin of English Cant.

The terms CANT and CANTING were doubtless derived from chaunt or chaunting,-the "whining tone, or modulation of voice adopted by beggars, with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole by pretensions of wretchedness."* For the origin

of the other application of the word CANT, pulpit hypocrisy, we are indebted to a pleasant page in the Spectator (No. 147);-"Cant is by some people derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect that 'tis said he was not understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time it has been under

* Richardson's Dictionary.

stood in a larger sense, and signifies all exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and in fine, all praying and preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians." is not correct.

time to have a

This anecdote is curious, if it

It was the custom in Addison's fling at the blue Presbyterians, and the mention made by Whitelocke of Andrew Cant, a fanatical Scotch preacher, and the squib upon the same worthy, in Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, may probably have started the whimsical etymology. As far as we are concerned, however, in the present inquiry, CANT was derived from chaunt, a beggar's whine; CHAUNTING being the recognised term amongst beggars to this day for begging orations and street whinings; and CHAUNTER, a street talker and tramp, the very term still used amongst strollers and patterers. The use of the word CANT, amongst beggars, must certainly have commenced at a very early date, for we find "To CANTE, to speake," in Harman's list of rogues' words in the year 1567; and Harrison about the same time,* in speaking of beggars and gipsies, says, "they have devised a

* Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle.

language among themselves which they name CANTING, but others Pedlars' Frenche."

Now the word CANT in its old sense, and SLANG* in its modern application, although used by good writers and persons of education as synonymes, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. CANT, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language, by allegory or distinct terms, of Gipsies, thieves, tramps, and beggars. SLANG represents that evanescent, vulgar language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest.‡ CANT is old; SLANG is always modern and changing. To illustrate the difference: a thief in cant language would term a horse a PRANCER or a PRAD,-while in slang, a man of

* The word SLANG, as will be seen in the chapter upon that subject, is purely a Gipsey term, although now-a-days it refers to low or vulgar language of any kind,-other than cant. SLANG and GIBBERISH in the Gipsey language are synonymous; but, as English adoptions, have meanings very different from that given to them in their original.

The vulgar tongue consists of two parts; the first is the CANT Language; the second, those burlesque phrases, quaint allusions, and nick names for persons, things, and places, which from long uninterrupted usage, are made classical by prescription.-Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1st edition, 1785.

fashion would speak of it as a BIT OF BLOOD, or a SPANKER, or a NEAT TIT. A handkerchief, too, would be a BILLY, a FOGLE, or a KENT RAG, in the secret language of low characters,—whilst amongst vulgar persons, or those who aped their speech, it would be called a RAG, a WIPE, or a CLOUT. CANT was formed for purposes of secrecy. SLANG is indulged in from a desire to appear familiar with with life, gaiety, town-humour, and with the transient nick names and street jokes of the day. Both Cant and Slang, I am aware, are often huddled together as synonymes, but they are distinct terms, and as such should be used.

To the Gipsies, beggars and thieves are undoubtedly indebted for their cant language. The Gipsies landed in this country early in the reign of Henry the Eighth. They were at first treated as conjurers and magicians,—indeed they were hailed by the populace with as much applause as a company of English theatricals usually receive on arriving in a distant colony. They came here with all their old Eastern arts of palmistry, fortune-telling, doubling money by incantation and burial,-shreds of pagan idolatry; and they brought with them also the dis

honesty of the lower caste of Asiatics, and the vagabondism they had acquired since leaving their ancient dwelling places in the East, many centuries before. They possessed, also, a language quite distinct from anything that had been heard in England, and they claimed the title of Egyptians, and as such, when their thievish wandering propensities became a public nuisance, were cautioned and proscribed in a royal proclamation by Henry VIII.* The Gipsies were not long in the country before they found native imitators. Vagabondism is peculiarly catching. The idle, the vagrant, and the criminal outcasts of society, caught an idea from the so called Egyptians-soon corrupted to Gipsies. They learned from them how to tramp, sleep under hedges and trees, to tell fortunes, and find stolen property for a consideration,-frequently, as the saying runs, before it was lost. They also learned the value and application of a secret tongue, indeed all the accompaniments of maunding and imposture, except thieving and begging, which were well known in this country long before the Gipsies paid it a visit, perhaps the only negative good that can be said in their favour.

* "Outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians." 1530.