have had the secret revealed ere now. If he was indeed the father of the Duke of Dorset, we can by no means wonder either that his letters should be withheld from such inquirers as Mr Coventry, (who, by the way, took a rather unwarrantable liberty in his method of asking for them,) or that the remarkable vellum-bound copy of Junius, which, it is well known, was

requested and received by the author from Woodfall, should not yet have been discovered. Mr Butler hints that Lord Grenville could tell something about that copy if he pleased. Without doubt, the last of the generation to which that eminent statesman belongs, must have passed away cre this mysterious controversy can be finally settled.

LEXICOGRAPHY, NO. I.

We take shame to ourselves for not having long before noticed this excellent work, but various important natters interfered. Jon did wrong in not sending us a presentation copy, for such works haul but slowly into this northern region. We think, morcover, that it has not made so much noise in the world as it has deserved; and we doubt the fact of its having even arrived at a second edition. A disgrace to the age.

We intend now to remedy our former obliviousness, and to gut the book in the most industrious fashion. Concerning the author, we are sorry to say, that we are considerably in the dark, farther than that he is the editor of a periodical work which we read with great delight-The Annals of Fancy. A periodical it is which we consider to be the very cleverest in London. Taylor's or Colburn's are not to be compared with it; and it is a magazine, in fact, which is what it pretends to be. Its rivals in London make pretensions to knowledge which they do not possess-talk of what they know nothing-and gentlemanlike feelings or manners, in which they are sadly at fault. Jon's periodical pretends to none of these things. What it says it will give it does give, and that is a merit of no small magnitude. Some lights as to his personal history he has scattered up and down in

this volume before us, thereby judiciously deserting the example of Homer to follow that of Milton. We learn, that his countenance so much resembles that of Shakespeare as to be substituted as a likeness of our great dramatist, (page xiv.); and that he "underwent cognominans chiefly on account of the sweetness of his disposition, his industrious habits, and stinging capabilities;" and that his family, though generally esteemed of the fam. gen. (hæc apis) are, nevertheless, well assorted, and he himself vir-apis (vel potius manbee,) p. 203,

204.

He is

We also gather from various narrations, that some twenty-nine years ago he belonged to the Brilliants in Chandos Street, p. 17; and that, at present, he is an active member of the Treponions at Tom Rees's Coffeehouse in the Strand, p. 180. the author of a compressed history of 700 battles, p. 202; and has a great aversion to Pearce Egan, passim, bestowing on that eminent writer a very unsavoury appellation, which he pretends to have derived from a member of the Cymmrodosian, p. 126. Of our magazine he is a most determined reader, as we shall show more at length by-and-by, and frequently not a laudator, as he ought. It would, we suppose, be superfluous to state that he is an active frequenter of all sorts of public houses, chaffing cribs, fives

VOL. XVIII.

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courts, eccentrics, &c. as well as a most ardent and indefatigable streetwalker at all hours and seasons-a man also well acquainted with the fair, and not unacquainted with those whose ways of life are generally foul. In his own words, p. 113, he has seen every variety of life, " except being presented at court, and feeling the delights of a prison." We fear he has not much chance of the former, and we sincerely hope is in no danger of the latter. His name those who will may conjecture; but we must congratulate him on the way he has discovered of spelling John. It is Grecian Ioans, in which it would be in vain to look for an aspirate. He appears sensible of its true Hebrew introduction into our language; for he remarks, in voce, Jack-the-Jew, or Jew-Jack, that no Jew parent would think of naming his child after the Baptist or Evangelist, p. 102; there by, of course, discriminating that the name must have come to us from them; for a man of Jon's erudition must be aware that they, being Jews themselves, must have had the name from the Hebrew, as indeed they had, it being Johanan. See, for example, Neh. chap. vi. verse 18, where it is recorded that a gentleman of that name was son of Tobiah, and married to the daughter of Meshullam, the son of Berachial. This obiter.

In a luminous and well-written preface, (Jon prides himself on his style, which he assures us (p. xv.) is both macaronic and fustian,) he goes over the various authors who have written dictionaries before him on the same subject. N. Bailey, whose claim to this honour appears to be rather questionable-Bamfylde Moore Carew, the anonymous author of characterism, circa 1750-G. Parker-Captain Grose -Dr Clarke-Hardy Vaux-all of those he speaks of rather with disparagement. It is probable that he could extend the list, and talk a little learned on the occasion, but there is no need; nor shall we stop to panegyrize Grose, as we could do, and that most truly. Burns has been beforehand with us. As for Vaux, Jon is right-he is a blackguard; so is the person whom he mentions as being in the pay of the St James's blacklegs; but these people are now forgotten. The peculiar sources from which our

author draws, are Harry Lemoine, Harry Dimsdale, General Joc Nestor, Billgrames, Mr G. Pound, Mr W. Perry, Bill Gibbons, Jack Scroggins. Jack Carter, Jack Atcherlee, Harlequin Billy, and Jack Goodlad-a worthy dozen of eminent men, some of whom have met with accidents in the course of their practice. With respect to one of them, Mr William Perry, (a relative, we believe, of the late Mr James Perry, alias Pirie, of the Morning Chronicle,) Jon brings a charge of plagiarism on his behalf against Pearce Egan, which it will be well if that pyxosophous historiographer can answer. We read it with unfeigned regret.

But omitting all squabbling, etymological and otherwise, let us come to the vocabulary. We are sorry that Jon deemed it necessary to intermix words of hunting, and other sporting, in his collection. He might as well have introduced words of law. A slang dictionary should contain nothing but slang words-viz. the language of thieves, pickpockets, jailors, prize-fighters, reporters, &c.-in a word, the dialect used by gentlemen and ladies of the town, the family, the fancy, and the press. Jon's first word is, "Abatures, foiling-the sprigs and grass that a stag thrusts down in passing out of or into cover." How does this word belong to slang, more than Leigh Hunt's "springy freshness," or his "perked-up countenance"? Slang they are in a certain sense, but not the slang of such a dictionary as this. As well you might put in ca-sa-fi-fa, et cetera of the lawyers; or the equally wonderful words of the M.D.'s; or the surplus produce and the replaced capital of the political economists. This should be amended in the next edition. Let him in that omit hunting affairs.

The music of the chase, we may remark, ere we quit this department, is rather singularly explained by Bee.

stag-hunters of the west country, and fre"Tontaron-pron. Tantaran by the red quently without the final (n.) Either gives pretty nearly the sound of a huntsman's notes on his horn, which, being variously modified, convey his wishes and intelligence to the hearers; it is a corruption of tontavon, the repetition of the last syllable-'tavon, tavon, tavon,'-quickly, being the call away; a change this

which hath been effected within a century past by the warblers, for sake of the liquid (r):

But vain is his speed-
They faster proceed,

In hopes to o'ertake him anon;
While echo around,

With the horn and the hound,
Responsive replies Taron-ton.

"They have gone farther, (see Tantivy,) and made an addition also, viz. after three repetitions of tontara, tontara, tontara,' they add a 'ton-tay;' their tay being of the same length as tone, which terminated almost every recheat. Tara would seem the feminine of taron, when used substantively; probably the lady and lord of the mansion in which the hunters

caroused

For, no joys can compare
To hunting of the hare;
'Sing Tara,'

Echo, in mezzo voce- and Tontaron.'

Sing Tara'-Echo, and Tontaron,' Both voices aloud,

'Sing Tara, my brave boys, and Tontaron.' The tara, however, may have been older than taron, or tavon, in some parts of the empire of G. B. Among the Celts of Ireland, Tara was the baronial castle, or seat; and the large hall was, in like manner, Tara, where the lord, or petty king, gave audience, settled disputes, awarded justice, (in aula regia,) caroused his retainers after hunting, and heard music.

The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul had fled.

Here, of course, the horn was heard in every variety of modulation, with its' ton, ton, ton, tara; tontara-tontara-tone.' Rory, King of Connaught, and Brian B'ru, had their assemblages of chiefs, called Tara, a council, or parliament. Tom Moore sings,

No more to chiefs and ladies bright,
The harp of Tara swells,

The chord alone that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.

This derivation of the halls of Tara will, no doubt, amaze its little minstrel somewhat; but, indeed, the whole speculation is admirable.

We have not yet, however, touched on the staple commodity of the book, which we shall divide into as few heads as possible. We begin then with ourselves. We are the object of Jon's remark, under the words Bellows, Cockney, Ebony, Havidge, Jargonic, Ironing, Modesty, Muck, Slang, Slangwhanger, Stot, Training; and in the Addenda, under A-la and Gaffawing, which shows how much he must have studied our instructive pages. We re

gret that we cannot quote the observations in voce, Ebony, for they are of that kind which is not fit for the perusal of virgins or boys. Under the words Stot and Bellows, Bee appears to labour under some misapprehension of our meaning. Stot, says Jon, is an ox which never can have progeny, and the term has been applied by Ebony to writers of the milk-and-water genus. If Mr Bee will have the goodness to peruse again our much-admired paper in the royal number, entitled, The Sorrows of the Stot, he will see that the writer to whom that appellation was applied, was not milkand-water. Under Bellows, he quotes a passage from that paper thus:"Each sentence of a slang discourse has been considered a bellows,' i. e. as a puff of wind from that machine." Blackwood says, but hear a few bellows farther forwards of this inconsistent stot.' Yet is old Ebony no authority, though a Slang whanger." Now Ebony is not old-but passing by this, it is evident that Jon is ignorant of the application of the word bellow altogether in that passage. We having applied it to the bestial roaring of the stultified brute who at that time infested the Scotsman. His other notices of our immortal publication, are worth consulting in the original, though not of transferring to our pages. We shall the rather give échantillons of his ideas of, I. The Latin Language. II. Public Life. III. The Press; and fourthly, a few miscellaneous articles, not reducible to any of these three heads, which last department, we fear, we must adjourn to another paper.

Jon's ideas of Latin are chiefly to be gathered from the following words. Addenda, A. M., Clicket, Corum, Crummy, Cyprian, Diabolus, Duel, Ebony, Gin, Lud, Monosyllable, Patter, Plebs, Poney, Quackery, Spinsters, Tits, Tot, Tulip, Twopennymen, Virago, and perhaps some others. Let the following specimens suffice.

"A.M. 10 o'clock A.M. is anti-meridian-forenoon."

"Corum, or Coorum-Coram, or sessions, technically wrong written, ‘quorum,' justice of the quorum. The judges at Westminster-Hall sit in coram domini rege.' K. B." [What do these letters mean?-we ask for information.]

"Diabolus Regii, the King's attorney-general; so appelled by the great little Waddington,' radically speaking, in coram Banco Regis. The radical used Diavolus, which would be the same thing, hispanically speaking; and the Timerian critic was out, hypercritically out, when he attempted to alter the nominative into regius!!"

We rejoice to see Jon thus learnedly chastising the Times, or, as he more beautifully expresses it, the Timerian critic. The controversy between those great stars of erudition must have been a truly edifying one.

66

Poney. Poene is a Latin word for pain or painfulness, and all the little wild horses being malformed, [Not fact, however, Jon; ask Glengarry, so as to give one an idea that they walk in pain (or poëne,) thence comes poney. Doctor Johnson knew no more of a poney or of a horse, than a horse knew of him." [The reason of this sarcasm against the LL.D. will appear under the head A B C-darian, which we shall quote.]

"Tot, the whole, from totius, (Latin.) By amplification, 'tis said, I'll take the whole tots.' Mr Hook says,

There's Hume with his tots, and his vots, Gaffer Grey."

"

Tulip Jack Carter evolved ex carcerâ, a tulip of no common colour."

Virago, derived from vir, Latin for mankind, and acu, sharp!!"

"Bazaar. A market-place in the Eastern countries; imported here 1815; and applied by a host of speculators to certain uninhabitable houses, fitted up with myriads of yardling shops for little dealers, like nests of Dutch pill-boxes-parorum succubit magno. The tumour absorbed in three years."

En passant, we may say, that if this last phrase be meant to imply that the Bazaars have been knocked up, Jon is in error. Half-a-dozen of them are flourishing this moment in London, and from one of them (Soho) Trotter draws a rent of 8000l. a-year. There are many more such flowers as these. Jon displays herein as much classical knowledge as we generally find in the papers of Taylor the Platonist. Indeed, the one is to Latin what the other is to Greek. In French, Jon shines every whit as brilliantly,

but we have not room to copy his specimens of what he might call Latinically the Gallicus linguæ.

His Public Life is excessively diverting.

been applied to certain ale sold by one "Brilliant-bright, sparkling. Having

Fulham, in Chandos Street, near St Martin's Lane, the name was assumed by a said ale. Their sittings were permanent. few choice spirits meeting there to drink

'The Brilliants' had the complete use of their tongues; and when, in 1796, the Gagging-bills, so called, became law, clogsembling, the orators of experience, as well ging liberty of speech and the right of asas those requiring juvenile trials, joined 'the brilliants,' and talked pompously of trifles. The subjects of debate sprung up on the spur of the occasion, or, if notice of motion were given from night to night, it was but to attain higher burlesque upon the other houses,' in the adjoining parish. On these bases were engrafted much good and elegant flower of speech. The speakers usually ran away with the argu. ment for that purpose, and successfully ridiculed a law that would stop men's mouths, and its authors (Pitt and Grenville) got laughed out of conceit with themselves. At the introduction, members paid 9d. each, the price of 'a brilliant' pot of ale; and, in 1797, two thousand names had been inscribed. The admission was increased to half-a-crown when we travelled, and ten thousand members might have been introduced altogether when it ceased. See Eccentrics.

No wonder that Pitt and Grenville neighbours-the Lads of the Lane. were alarmed at the eloquence of their Of the Eccentrics we are only told.

lows, similar to, and springing out of, "Eccentrics-an assembly of high felThe Brilliants,' (which see,) held at Tom Rees's, in May's Building's, St Martin's Lane, circa 1800.”

We believe the Eccentrics are now in rather a sickly state.

our Della Cruscan. The Cogers are not in favour with