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present the very extreme of fashion, "dressing to DEATH; a reunion, a SPREAD; a friend, (or a "good fellow,") a TRUMF; a difficulty, a SCREW LOOSE; and everything that is unpleasant, "from bad sherry to a writ from a tailor," JEUCED INFERNAL. The military phrase, "to send a man to COVENTRY," or permit no person to speak to him, although an ancient saying, must still be considered Slang.

The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the great public schools, are the hotbeds of fashionable Slang. Growing boys and high-spirited young fellows detest restraint of all kinds, and prefer making a dash at life in a Slang phraseology of their own, to all the set forms and syntactical rules of Alma Mater. Many of the most expressive words in a common chit-chat, or free-and-easy conversation, are old university vulgarisms. CUT, in the sense of dropping an acquaintance, was originally a Cambridge form of speech; and HOAX, to deceive or ridicule, we are informed by Grose, was many years since an Oxford term. Among the words that fast society has borrowed from our great scholastic (I was going to say establishments, but I remember the linen-drapers' horrid and habitual use of the word) institutions, I find CRIB, a house or apartments; DEAD-MEN, empty wine bottles; DRAWING TEETH,* wrenching off knockers ; FIZZING, first-rate, or splendid; GOVERNOR, or RELIEVING-OFFICER, the general term for a male parent; PLUCKED, defeated or turned back; QUIZ, to scrutinise, or a prying old fellow; and Row, a noisy disturbance. The Slang words in use at Oxford and Cambridge would alone fill a volume. As examples I may instance SCOUT, which at Oxford refers to an undergraduate's valet, whilst the same menial at Cambridge is termed a GYP,-popularly derived by the Cantabs from the Greek, GYPS, (yù↓,) a vulture; SCULL, the head, or master of a college; BATTLES, the Oxford

* This is more especially an amusement with medical students, and is comparatively unknown out of London.

The

term for rations, changed at Cambridge into COMMONS. term DICKEY, a half shirt, I am told, originated with the students of Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a TOMMY, from the Greek, roun, a section. CRIB, a literal translation, is now universal; GRIND refers to "working up" for an examination, also, to a walk, or "constitutional;" HIVITE is a student of St Begh's (St Bee's) College, Cumberland; to JAPAN, in this Slang speech, is to ordain; MORTAR-BOARD is a square college cap; SIM, a student of a Methodistical turn-in allusion to the Rev. Charles

Simeon; SLOGGERS, at Cambridge, refers to the second division of race boats, known at Oxford as TORPIDS; SPORT is to shew or exhibit; TROTTER is the jocose term for a tailor's man who goes round for orders; and TUFTS are wealthy students who dine with the DONS, and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. There are many terms in use at Oxford not known at Cambridge; and such Slang names as COACH, GULF, HARRYSOPH, POKER, or POST-MORTEM, common enough at Cambridge, are seldom or never heard at the great sister university. For numerous other examples of college Slang the reader is referred to the Dictionary.

Religious Slang, strange as the compound may appear, exists with other descriptions of vulgar speech at the present day. Punch, a short time since, in one of those half-humorous, halfserious articles in which he is so fond of lecturing any national abuse or popular folly, remarked that Slang had "long since penetrated into the Forum, and now we meet it in the Senate, nd even the pulpit itself is no longer free from its intrusion.” . would not, for one moment, wish to infer that the practice is general. On the contrary, and in justice to the clergy, it must be said that the principal disseminators of pure English throughout the country are the ministers of our Established Church. Yet it cannot be denied but that a great deal of Slang phraseology and disagreeable vulgarism have gradually crept into the

D

very pulpits which should give forth as pure speech as doctrine.

Dean Conybeare, in his able Essay on Church Parties,* has noticed this wretched addition to our pulpit speech. As stated in his Essay, the practice appears to confine itself mainly to the exaggerated forms of the High and Low Church-the Tractarians and the "Recordites." + By way of illustration, the Dean cites the evening parties, or social meetings, common amongst the wealthier lay members of the Recordite (exaggerated Evangelical) Churches, where the principal topics discussed-one or more favourite clergymen being present in a quasi-official mannerare "the merits and demerits of different preachers, the approaching restoration of the Jews, the date of the Millennium, the progress of the Tractarian heresy,' and the anticipated 'perversion' of High-Church neighbours." These subjects are canvassed in a dialect differing considerably from common English. The words FAITHFUL, TAINTED, ACCEPTABLE, DECIDED, LEGAL, and many others, are used in a technical sense. We hear that Mr A. has been more OWNED than Mr B.; and that Mr C. has more SEALS than Mr D. Again, the word GRACIOUS is invested with a meaning as extensive as that attached by young ladies to nice. Thus, we hear of a GRACIOUS sermon," a 66

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GRACIOUS meeting," a "GRACIOUS child," and even a GRACIOUS Whipping." The word DARK has also a new and peculiar usage. It is applied to every person, book, or place, not impregnated with Recordite principles. We once were witnesses of a ludicrous misunderstanding resulting from this phraseology. "What did you mean," said A. to B., "by telling me that was such a very DARK village? I rode over there to-day, and found the street particularly broad and

*Edinburgh Review, October 1853.

+ A term derived from the Record Newspaper, the exponent of this singular section of the Low, or so-called Evangelical Church.

A preacher is said, in this phraseology, to be OWNED when he makes many converts, and his converts are called his SEALS.

cheerful, and there is not a tree in the place."

"The gospel is

not preached there," was B.'s laconic reply. The conclusion of one of these singular evening parties is generally marked by an exposition "—an unseasonable sermon of nearly one hour's duration, circumscribed by no text, and delivered from the table by one of the clerical visitors with a view to "improve the occasion." In the same Essay, the religious Slang terms for the two great divisions of the Established Church receive some explanation. The old-fashioned High-Church party-rich and "stagnant," noted for its "sluggish mediocrity, hatred of zeal, dread of innovation, abuse of Dissent, blundering and languid utterance"-is called the HIGH AND DRY; whilst the corresponding division, known as the Low Church-equally stagnant with the former, but poorer, and more lazily inclined (from absence of education) to Dissent-receives the nickname of the LOW AND SLOW. Already have these terms become so familiar that they are shortened, in ordinary conversation, to the DRY and the SLOW. The so-called "Broad Church," I should remark, is often spoken of as the BROAD AND SHALLOW.

What can be more objectionable than the irreverent and offensive manner in which many of the Dissenting ministers continually pronounce the names of the Deity-God and Lord? God, instead of pronouncing in the plain and beautiful simple old English way, G-O-D, they drawl out into GORDE or GAUDE; and Lord, instead of speaking in the proper way, they desecrate into LOARD or LOERD,-lingering on the u, or the r, as the case may be, until an honest hearer feels disgusted, and almost inclined to run the gantlet of beadles and deacons, and pull the vulgar preacher from his pulpit. I have observed that many young preachers strive hard to acquire this peculiar pronunciation, in imitation of the older ministers. What can more properly, then, be called Slang, or, indeed, the most objectionable of Slang, than this studious endeavour to pronounce the most

sacred names in a uniformly vulgar and unbecoming manner? If the old-fashioned preacher whistled Cant through his nose, the modern vulgar reverend whines Slang from the more natural organ. These vagaries of speech will, perhaps, by an apologist, be termed "pulpit peculiarities," and the writer dared to intermeddle with a subject that is or should be removed from his criticisms. The terms used by the mob towards the Church, however illiberal and satirically vulgar, are within his province in such an inquiry as the present. A clergyman, in vulgar language, is spoken of as a CHOKER, a CUSHION - THUMPER, a DOMINIE, an EARWIG, a GOSPEL-GRINDER, a GRAY-COAT PARSON; if he is a lessee of the great tithes, ONE IN TEN, PADRE ; if spoken of by an Anglo-Indian, a ROOK, a SPOUTER, a WHITECHOKER, or a WARMING-PAN RECTOR, if he only holds the living pro tempore, or is simply keeping the place warm for his successor. If a Tractarian, his outer garment is rudely spoken of as a PYGOSTOLE, or M.B. (MARK OF THE BEAST) COAT. His profession is termed THE CLOTH, and his practice TUB-THUMPING. Should he belong to the Dissenting body, he is probably styled a PANTILER, or a PSALM-SMITER, or, perhaps, a SWADDLER. His chapel, too, is spoken of as a SCHISM SHOP. A Roman Catholic, I may remark, is coarsely named a BRISKET-BEATER.

Particular as lawyers generally are about the meaning of words, they have not prevented an unauthorised phraseology from arising, which we may term Legal Slang. So forcibly did this truth impress a late writer, that he wrote in a popular journal, "You may hear Slang every day in term from barristers in their robes, at every mess-table, at every bar-mess, at every college commons, and in every club dining-room." Swift, in his Art of Polite Conversation, (p. 15,) published a century and a half ago, states that VARDI was the Slang in his time for "verdict." A few of the most common and well-known terms used out of doors, with reference to legal matters, are cook, to hash or make up a bal