PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Few, if any, remarks, I trust, will be deemed necessary, y, after the preceding PREFACES, in which the utility of such a DICTIONARY has been so clearly pointed out; and, after the care observed, in every instance, towards expunging coarse and broad expressions, where it could be done, without frittering away the spirit of the work. In the present edition, for myself, I have strongly to re-echo the sentiments of the former editors,. namely, that I have neglected no opportunity of excluding indelicate phrases, which might have been adopted by my predecessors, nor of softening down others, where propriety pointed out such a course as not only necessary, but, perhaps, essential to render palatable this CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE. At all events, if any apology is requisite, the subject in question must be viewed as a compilation of sentences collected from the lower walks of society, in which a scrupulous attention to nicety of expression is neither expected nor looked for; the persons alluded to, from whose lips they have escaped, not being "partiklar as to a shade" in colouring their lingo, or in displaying their taste for erudition -their only object being effect. The above argument has been so well handled by a celebrated poet,* and is so a-propos, that I cannot elucidate the subject better than by quoting his remarks:-" With respect to that 66 66 peculiar language, called Flash or St. Giles's Greek, in which Mr. CRIB's Memorial and the "other articles in the present volume are written, "I beg to trouble the reader with a few observa"tions. As this expressive language was originally invented, and is still used, like the * Thomas Moore. 66 cipher of the diplomatists, for purposes of secrecy, and as a means of eluding the vigi"lance of a certain class of persons, called, flashicé, Traps, or in common language, Bow"Street-Officers, it is subject of course to con"tinual change, and is perpetually either alter❝ing the meaning of old words, or adding new 66 ones, according as the great object, secrecy, "renders it prudent to have recourse to such in"novations. In this respect, also, it resembles "the cryptography of kings and ambassadors, "who, by a continual change of cipher, contrive "to baffle the inquisitiveness of the enemy. But, "notwithstanding the Protean nature of the "Flash or Cant language, the greater part of "its vocabulary has remained unchanged for 66 centuries, and many of the words used by the "Canting Beggars in Beaumont and Fletcher, " and the Gipsies in Ben Jonson's Masque, are "still to be heard among the Gnostics of Dyot"street and Tothill-fields. To prig is still to "steal; to fib, to beat; lour, money; duds, "clothes; prancers, horses; bouzing-ken, an alehouse; cove, a fellow; a sow's baby, a pig, "&c. &c. There are also several instances of "the same term, preserved with a totally diffe"rent signification. Thus, to mill, which was 66 6 originally to rob,' is now to beat or fight;' "and the word rum, which, in Ben Jonson's “time, and even so late as Grose, meant fine "and good, is now generally used for the very opposite qualities; as, • he's but a rum one,' 66 "&c. Most of the Cant phrases in Head's English Rogue, which was published, I believe, " in 1666, would be intelligible to a Greek of "the present day; though it must be confessed "that the Songs which both he and Dekker have 66 given would puzzle even that Graiæ gentis "decus,' Caleb Baldwin, himself. For in"stance, one of the simplest begins, Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure, "To the cultivation, in our times, of the "science of Pugilism, the Flash Language is "indebted for a considerable addition to its "treasures. Indeed, so impossible is it to de"scribe the operations of THE FANCY without "words of proportionate energy to do justice "to the subject, that we find Pope and Cowper, "in their translation of the Set-to in the Iliad, pressing words into the service which had "seldom, I think, if ever, been enlisted into "the ranks of poetry before. Thus Pope, "Secure this hand shall his whole frame confound, "Cowper, in the same manner, translates xoVE wapniov, 'pash'd him on the cheek ;' σε δε 66 હ and, in describing the wrestling-match, makes use of a term, now more properly applied to a peculiar kind of blow,* of which Mendoza " is supposed to have been the inventor. As this work is a classical one, I hope Mr. Hazlitt will not be offended by my quoting his opinions upon the subject. "What we under *« A chopper is a blow struck on the face with the back "of the hand."-Boxiana, vol. ii. p. 20. |