1828.] Slang Dictionaries. 149 
The list gathered by worthy Mr. Harman, which thus excites the 
anger of Mr. Harrison, has been often reprinted. The ungracious 
rogues are carefully divided into fourteen classes of men, and nine of 
women. This Linnzan distribution consists of-—l. Rufflers.—2. Upright 
men.—3. Hookers and anglers.—4. Rogues.—5. Wild rogues.—6. Prig- 
gers of prancers.—7. Palliardes.—8. Fraters.—9. Jarkmen or Patricoes. 
—10. Fresh-water mariners, or whip-jackets. — 11. Drummerers. — 
12. Drunken tinkers.—13. Swadlers, or pedlars; and, 14. Abrams. 
The ladies are,—1. Demanders for glimmer (fire). — 2. Baskets.— 
3. Morts.—4. Autem morts.—5. Walking morts.—6. Doxies.—7. Delles. 
8. Kinching morts; and, 9. Kinching coes. 
Hollinshed’s Chronicles appeared in 1577; and thirty-three years 
before that brings us to about the time of the suppression of the monas- 
teries. These institutions fed multitudes of the poor, who, until the esta- 
blishment of the poor laws, were left wholly destitute. It is no wonder 
then that there should be amore than usual spread of pauperism over the 
country, which those laws were intended to remedy. The harsh and 
reckless way in which King Henry the Eighth turned out the friars 
themselves, giving himself, in many instances, very little trouble to 
inquire how they were to be provided for, added to the mendicants. 
Hence, perhaps, the name “fraters” for the eighth class in the above 
list. In an etymological point of view, we can easily account for the 
springing up of a new dialect among the lower orders about that time, 
without attributing it altogether to their roguish propensities. The 
language of England—we speak of the people emphatically—at all 
times after the conquest, had been Saxon; that of the Normans, and 
those who in after times represented them, French. These languages 
had been for a long time approaching to a complete amalgamation, but 
their final union was considerably hastened by the civil wars, which 
imposed upon the great a necessity of cultivating an acquaintance with 
all the various dialects of different parts of the country. The bringing 
together of the inhabitants of the north, south, east, and west of Eng- 
land, as was continually the case in these wars, of itself produced a 
lingua Franca ; and Mr. Harman himself would perhaps have been not 
a little astonished to find that many of the words which he, in all pro- 
bability, would have stigmatized as the casual inventions of rogues, for 
the purpose of casting a veil over their mal-practices, were more solidly 
English, than the picked phraseology of the gallants of the court. 
The Egyptians, of whom he speaks, drew their vocabulary from a 
very different origin. They had, about this time, made their appear- 
ance in Europe, where, until their knaveries exposed them, they were, 
in general, most favourably received. There exists a document, signed 
by our James I., while he was only King of Scotland, granting certain 
privileges to John Fa, Duke of Little Egypt, and other very sonorous 
titles, and his lordship over his gipsies was acknowledged with all feudal 
nicety of detail. But they soon got a very ill repute, and the statute, 
which made it felony, without benefit of clergy, to be one hour in their 
company, has been repealed only in our times. They are now gene- 
rally supposed to have been a Hindoo tribe; and the researches of 
dian scholars have succeeded in identifying their patter with one of 
the dialects of Hindostan. 
___ This collection of Mr. Harman's appears to have been the first attempt 
to make a dictionary of the vulgar tongue. He called it “A Caveat for 
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