The Language of Thieves and Vagabonds: 17th and 18th Century Canting Lexicography in England [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110924404, 9783484309944

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Series Maior

LEXICOGRAPHICA Series Maior Supplementary Volumes to the International Annual for Lexicography Suppléments à la Revue Internationale de Lexicographie Supplementbände zum Internationalen Jahrbuch für Lexikographie

Edited by Sture Allén, Pierre Corbin, Reinhard R. K. Hartmann, Franz Josef Hausmann, Ulrich Heid, Oskar Reichmann, Ladislav Zgusta 94

Published in cooperation with the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) and the European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX)

Maurizio Gotti

The Language of Thieves and Vagabonds 17th and 18th Century Canting Lexicography in England

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1999

To Vanna, Elena and Alessandro

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme [Lexicographica / Series maior] Lexicographica : supplementary volumes to the International annual for lexicography / pubi, in cooperation with the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) and the European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX). Series maior. - Tübingen : Niemeyer. Früher Schriftenreihe Reihe Series maior zu: Lexicographica 94. Gotti, Maurizio: The language of thieves and vagabonds. - 1999 Gotti, Maurizio: The language of thieves and vagabonds : 17th and 18th century canting lexicography in England / Maurizio Gotti. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1999 (Lexicographica : Series maior ; 94) ISBN 3-484-30994-6

ISSN 0175-9264

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH, Tübingen 1999 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Weihert-Druck GmbH, Darmstadt Einband: Nädele Verlags- und Industriebuchbinderei, Nehren

Contents

Preface

1

1 The English underworld in the 16th-18th centuries 1.1 The reasons for this increase 1.2 The activities of the underworld

5 6 13

2 Early canting literature 2.1 The Highway to the Spital-House 2.2 A Manifest Detection 2.3 TheFratemityeofVacabondes 2.4 A Caueat or Wareningfor Commen Cvrsetors Vvlgarely Called Vagabones . 2.5 Robert Greene's conny-catching pamphlets 2.6 Dekker's publications 2.7 Martin Mark-All

16 17 18 19 22 25 27 29

3 The 3.1 3.2 3.3

33 35 37 48

new canting terms reported by Richard Head The new canting terms in Head's dictionary The origin of Head's new terms Conclusion

4 The canting terms of Coles' dictionary 4.1 Coles' adoption of Head's canting terms 4.2 Coles'alteration of Head's spellings 4.3 Coles' rendering of Head's definitions 4.4 Coles' new entries 4.5 Conclusion

50 53 55 57 59

5 B.E.'s innovative approach 5.1 The aims of the dictionary 5.2 B.E's terms of the canting crew 5.3 The 'hard words' of B.E.'s dictionary 5.4 The variety of B.E.'s entries 5.5 A dictionary of 'popular language'

61 61 62 63 64 66

6 The canting component of The Ladies Dictionary 6.1 The aims of The Ladies Dictionary 6.2 The main sources 6.3 The contents of The Ladies Dictionary 6.4 The canting component 6.5 Conclusion

68 69 70 72 73 75

VI 7 Alexander Smith's Thieves New Canting Dictionary 7.1 The first two editions 7.2 The fifth edition 7.3 The Thieves Grammar and The Thieves Key 7.4 The Thieves Exercise

76 77 78 81 82

8 Lexical additions in A New Canting Dictionary 8.1 The canting terms drawn from B.E.'s dictionary 8.2 The other terms listed in the dictionary 8.3 Conclusion

85 86 91 93

9 John Poulter's canting expressions 9.1 The main aims of the book 9.2 The roguish types 9.3 The canting glossary 9.4 Conclusion

94 94 95 97 99

10 Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue 10.1 Grose's new cant terms 10.2 Grose as a lexicographer 10.3 Grose's explanation of his terms 10.4 The origin of Grose's new terms 10.5 Conclusion

101 102 105 107 109 113

11 The evolution of the concept of cant in the 17th and 18th centuries 11.1 The term cant in the early literature about the English underworld 11.2 A more accurate appreciation of the canting speech 11.3 Towards a different perception of cant

114 115 118 120

Appendices

123

Bibliography

137

Summaries

141

Indexes

143

Preface

The object of the present volume is the analysis of the main dictionaries and glossaries of the canting language that appeared in the 17th and 18th centuries. By canting we mean the particular jargon spoken by thieves and vagabonds, identified as an 'antilanguage' typical of an 'antisoriety', since its speakers' activities were considered criminal for the rest of British society. Many studies have already been devoted to this subject (such as those carried out by Hotten 1874, Partridge 1933, Noyes 1941 and Barisone 1984), taking into consideration not only the main features and lexical items of this particular language, but also the lexicographic works written about them. The scholars' attention, however, has mostly concentrated on the earliest publications - particularly those appearing in the Elizabethan period -, while relatively little research has investigated subsequent canting dictionaries and glossaries. The aim of the present volume is to fill this gap. The main works on canting published in the 17th and 18th centuries are analysed in chapters 3-10 of this volume. The first two chapters, instead, are meant as a necessary introduction to the investigation carried out in the subsequent sections: the first chapter examines the great increase in the numbers of vagabonds and criminals in England in that period from a socio-historical perspective, with particular emphasis on those elements which can justify the reaction of contemporary society to this phenomenon; the second chapter, on the other hand, briefly reviews the 16 -century English literature about the underworld and highlights both the principal characteristics of the canting jargon so far identified and the various words and expressions reported in them together with their meanings in the standard language. The subsequent eight chapters provide a detailed analysis of the main works on canting which appeared in the second part of the 17th century and during the whole of the 18th century. The specific features of each publication are identified, as well as the method adopted by its author in the compilation of his dictionary/glossary and the most likely sources of its entries, in order to determine the degree of novelty and relevance that his contribution has brought to this field. The first author taken into consideration is Richard Head, who in his two publications - The English Rogue (1665) and The Canting Academy (1673) - dealt with the main types of criminal figures then characterizing the English underworld, their illicit activities and their secret language. Apart from the many new terms reported in these two works, the relevance of Head's contribution is identified in favouring a revival of the interest in the roguish sector of English society after the long break caused by the Civil War and the subsequent Puritan rule. Chapter 4 analyses the canting terms included by Elisha Coles in An English Dictionary (1676), one of the first monolingual lexicographic works published in England. Although this volume does not insert any canting expressions never reported before, its importance lies in its compiler's decision to include elements of this jargon in a publication which is not exclusively devoted to the language of the underworld, but in a general dictionary of the English tongue, an example followed by several subsequent dictionary compilers, and in particular by Nathan Bailey in the third edition of his very popular Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1737). The next chapter takes into consideration the innovative approach to the evolution of canting lexicography in the 17th century adopted by B.E. in A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and

2 Modem of the Canting Crew (c.1698). Apart from his important contribution to the collection and definition of canting vocabulary, B.E. deserves great merit for having reported several other terms used by the lower strata of British society in his time, thus presenting a picture of London's contemporary 'popular speech'. The widened popularity acquired by canting expressions at the end of the 17th century is testified to by the inclusion of many of them in The Ladies Dictionary (1694), a work principally compiled as "General Entertainment for the fair Sex". Although the canting component is not very innovative, its inclusion in this dictionary highlights the relevance that this aspect had acquired also for the female reading public and thus confirms the great interest in this specific lexical branch felt not only by the groups strictly connected with the underworld, but by all the different social strata and economic classes in Britain at that time. Chapter 7 examines the canting terminology included in Alexander Smith's The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men, Foot-Pads and Other Thieves, and Murderers (1714), the first notable collection of rogue biographies in English. The part of this work mainly analysed here is the cant dictionary included in the fifth edition, although other interesting sections - The Thieves Grammar1, The Thieves Key' and 'The Thieves Exercise' - are also taken into consideration. The addition of a few new expressions and the provision of a different rendering for some traditional canting terms confer a certain degree of lexicographic novelty to this work. The following chapter is devoted to the analysis of A New Canting dictionary (1725), one of the most widely quoted and copied works of 1 ^-century canting literature. Although relying very much on B.E.'s dictionary, this volume cannot be considered the result of mere plagiarizing, but should be taken as the accomplishment of very accurate revisionary work, which thoroughly re-examined all the entries listed in its main source. The Discoveries ofJohn Poulter, alias Baxter (1753) - examined in Chapter 9 - represents a relevant contribution to the knowledge of the canting language, as it contains several expressions which had never been reported before. Moreover, the second part of the pamphlet introduces new criminal figures and explains the roguish devices they used. This pamphlet does not only provide a large amount of new information and terminology about the habits of the underworld in the middle of the 18th century, but also confirms the continual changes and evolutions of this jargon in order to provide substitutes for the expressions which had become obsolete or had lost their mysterious and exclusive nature. The last work taken into consideration is Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), a remarkable contribution to the understanding of the language of the English underworld, as it reports several canting expressions never reported in previous dictionaries or glossaries. Moreover, the volume does not include only canting terms, but also lexemes typical of the informal and substandard varieties of the English tongue, thus providing a further expansion of the field dealt with so far. The perusal of the lexicographic works of these two centuries has thus enabled us to draw interesting conclusions concerning the evolution in the meaning of the term cant itself in the period taken into consideration. From the limited original meaning of 'secret language of beggars and thieves', it has subsequently been used to cover different fields and has thus acquired a wider range of reference. Moreover, the social reality taken into consideration has become more and more complex, breaking through the strict barriers of the underworld of thieves and beggars in order to include larger sectors of the lower strata of British society, with the result that the linguistic reality investigated has come to include other areas, such as those of 'popular language', Vulgar language' and 'slang'.

3 Some chapters of this book have appeared as independent papers in other publications; during the compilation of this volume, however, they have been revised and updated so as to conform to a unitary view of the whole subject; thanks are due to the publishers of the original papers. I should also like to thank Ermanno Barisone (University of Genoa), Richard Duty (University of Brescia), Geoffrey Hughes (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg), Roderick McConchie (University of Helsinki), Hans Sauer (University of Munich) and Laura Wright (University of Cambridge) for their careful reading of the manuscript and for their valuable comments and suggestions; of course, responsibility for the views expressed in the final version of the bookremainsentirely mine.

Chapter 1

The English Underworld in the 16th-18th Centuries

The object of this chapter is the analysis of the characteristics of the English underworld in the period covered by this book. The information obtained on this social group is to be considered essential for the correct interpretation of the lexicographical works concerning the language spoken by its members. The decision to take into consideration this phenomenon starting from the 16th century does not mean, however, that this social group came into existence only then. On the contrary, beggars and vagabonds had existed before, but it was in this period that they began to be considered particularly numerous and dangerous. Doubtlessly in the 16th century there was an increase in their numbers, although there are no reliable figures that can provide an adequate estimate of the exact quantity of the total mass of people belonging to this social class. However, mention of them can very often be found in the literature of the time and in other works, such as pamphlets, sermons, travel books and public documents. Moreover, the abundance of royal proclamations issued against them suggests a particular preoccupation concerning the problems created by their presence in the English countryside. For example, the following proclamation of Herny VIII against vagabonds provides a hint of how this increase was perceived: The kynge our moste dradde soueraigne lorde, hauynge always in his moste blessed remembrance, as well the cure and charge of his dignité royall, as also the present astate of this his realme, and his subiectes of the same, considereth, that in all places thorowe out this his realme of Englande, vacabundes and beggars, haue of longe tyme encreased and daily dothe encrease in great and excessiue nombres, by the occasyon of ydelness, mother and roote of all vices: whereby haue insurged and spronge, and dayly insurgeth and springeth contynuall theftes, mourdres, and other sundry haynous offences and great enormities to the high displeasure of god, the inquietation and damage of his true and faithfull subiectes, and to the disturbance of the hoole common weale of this his sayd realme: And where as many and sundry good lawes, statutes, and ordinaunces haue ben before this tyme deuised and made, as well by his hyghnes as also by diuers his moste noble progenitours kynges of Englande, for the moste necessary and due reformation of the premysses: yet that not withstandynge, the sayde nombres of vacabundes and beggars, be not seen in any parte, to be mynyshed but dayly to be augmented and encreased in to great rowtes and companyes. (Quoted in Aydelotte 1913:142-143)

The presence of a vast number of vagabonds was seen as socially dangerous, as it enhanced the opportunity for crime. This threat to society was perceived by English commentators, and was also pointed out by foreign visitors; here is the comment made by the Venetian envoy to the English Court: There is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as in England; in so much that few venture to go alone in the country excepting in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night, and least of all in London. (Quoted in Hibbert 1963:20)

6 Some indicative figures may be deduced from a few documents of that period. A document of 15691 reports the existence of 13,000 rogues and masterless men. A similar figure is reported by Harrison (1577/1877: 218): "They are now supposed of one sex and another, to amount vnto aboue 10000 persons." Another estimate, made by the Lord Mayor of London (Sir John Spenser) in 1594 (quoted in Aydelotte 1913: 4), gives a figure of 12,000 begging poor in the city alone. A census of Sheffield, taken in January 1615, indicates that the extent of poverty in the town had reached the level of one third of the inhabitants: By a survaie of the towne of Sheffield made the second daye of Januarie 1615 by twenty foure of the most sufficient inhabitants there, it appearethe that there are in the towne of Sheffelde 2207 people; of which there are 725 which are not able to live without the charity of their neighbours. These are all begging poore. (Quoted in Webb & Webb 1927: 82) These figures may seem particularly high, and perhaps have been exaggerated. Nevertherless, several modern historians have confirmed them2, although others tend to view the phenomenon in a less dramatic perspective: The vagrant bands of beggars or gipsies, with a canting language and a structured hierarchy, may sometimes have existed behind our evidence of individual vagabonds. But they were by no means as common as Harman and particularly his later plagiarists suggested. Their descriptions were the result of contemporary desires to define and perhaps to romanticize the vagrant phenomenon, to provide stereotypes in order to make the reality more explicable and more palatable. (Slack 1974: 377) But, however emphasized the phenomenon may have been, the widespread and alarmed interest paid to it by contemporary and subsequent writers3 should induce modern readers not to dismiss it as a trifling aspect or disregard it altogether. As Cockburn rightly asserts, It is difficult to dismiss lightly the mass of contemporary evidence associating vagrants with crime, and particularly with crimes against property. Acts of parliament, proclamations, legal writers and private correspondents all agreed that vagrants constituted a menace to public order which was both serious and, at least for much of Elizabeth's reign, increasing. (Cockburn 1977: 62)

1.1. The reasons for this increase

The phenomenon of the increase in vagrants was common to other countries in Europe, as can be seen from the many publications about the subject which appeared all over the

1 2 3

British Museum Cotton MS, Titus Β Π, fo. 471, printed in Strype, Annals, vol. i, chap. lv. Brindenbaugh (1968), for example, estimates London's poor to have been 30,000 in 1602. This alarming tone is echoed in the following remark by Kamen: Vagrancy threatened every aspect of the ordered society. It betokened unsettled social relationships, broken homes, unemployment, rootlessness; it introduced the unstable stranger into allegedly stable communities; it brought new and alien ways into traditional environments. (Kamen 1971: 391)

7 Continent. For instance, a veiy popular book about vagrancy {Liber Vagatorum) containing both a description of the various types of vagabonds and a canting dictionary appeared in Germany as early as 1514. The subject was discussed by the most eminent personages, including Martin Luther, who wrote a preface to the 1528 edition of this book. Statutes and ordinances appeared also in other nations, such as the Netherlands and France. The situation, however, became particularly grievous in England for various socioeconomic reasons. Contemporary Englishmen tried to understand the reasons for this increase, but they mainly identified the more superficial aspects. The preamble to the Act of 1536, for example, points out several possible causes of impoverishment, principally attributing them to personal factors, such as old age, sickness, unemployment, bad habits, family conditioning or idleness: Forasmoche as the Kynges Maiestie hathe full and perfite notice that ther be within this his Realme aswell a right grete multitude of strong valiaunt beggers, vacabundes, and idle persones of bothe kyndes, men and women, which - though they myght well labour for ther livyng if they wolde - will not yet put themself to it as dyuers other of his true and faithfull subiectes do, but geue themself to lyue idlely by beggyng and procuiyng of Almes of the people to the high displeasure of almyghty god, hurte of ther owne soules, euyll example to other, and to the grete hurte of the comen welthe of this Reaime; as also dyuers other olde sicke lame feble and impotent persones not able to labour for their livyng but ar dryuen of necessite to procure thalmes and charité of the people. And his highnes hathe perfite knowlage that som of them haue fallen into such pouertie onely of the visitación of god, through sicknes and other casualties, and some through ther owne defaulte, wherby they haue come fynally to that poynte that they coulde not labour for any part of their livyng, but of necessite ar driven to live holy of the charité of the people. And that some haue fallen to such mysery through the defaulte of ther maisters which haue put them out of seruyce in tyme of sicknes and left them hooly without relief or comforte. And some be fallen therto through default of ther frendes which in youthe haue brought them vp in ouermoche pleasure and idlenes and instructed them not in any thyng wherwith they myght in age gett ther livyng, and some haue set such as haue ben vnder ther rule to procure ther livyng by open beggyng euen from childehod, so that they neuer knewe any other waie of livyng but onely by beggyng - And so for lacke of gode ouersight in youthe many live in grete mysery in age. And some haue comen to such myserie through ther owne defaulte, as through slouthe pride negligence falsehod and such other vngraciousnes, wherby ther maisters louers and flrendes haue ben driven to forsake them, and fynally noman wolde take them to any seruyce, wherby they haue in processe of tyme lyen in the open stretes and fallen to vtter desolacion. And dyuers other occasions haue brought many to such pouertie, which wer very long to reherse here. But whatsoeuer thoccasion be, charité requyreth that some waie be taken to helpe and socour them that be in such necessite, and also to preuent that other shall not hereafter fall into like mysery. (Quoted in Elton 1953: 57) There were other socio-historical reasons that made this problem particularly serious in this period. One of them is the implementation of enclosures and the consequent increase in unemployment among peasant farmers4; the emphasis given to sheep raising 4

The process by means of which the enclosure system favoured the increase in unemployment and vagrancy is analyzed in a detailed way by Ramsey. Here is a part of his analysis: All too often [...] the encloser acted at the expense of his neighbours and disregarded their rights. Unable to obtain their amicable consent to an exchange of lands that would allow him to consolidate his holdings, he forced tenants out of their holdings by threats and financial

8 particularly in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII - led to the eviction of poor tenants, since the wool industry required very few labourers as compared with tillage: the latter demanded many plowmen and reapers, while pasture required only a few shepherds. Jordan (1959) has estimated that about 1200 square miles of agricultural land were enclosed in the period between 1455 and 1637, which resulted in the dispossession and unemployment of some 35,000 families. The alternative to starving for the unemployed was to leave their homes and try to find employment opportunities elsewhere. As Pound remarks, The position obviously varied from area to area, but in most districts too many people were pursuing too few jobs. [...] Unless alternative occupations were available locally - and this was seldom the case - a man had no alternative but to seek employment elsewhere. (Pound 1971: 6) In general, the living conditions of agricultural labourers were not very prosperous, due to the weak economic structure of the period. As Sharpe points out, The rhythms of pre-industrial economy might provide full employment for a month or so at harvest time, but in the slack periods of the agricultural year there would simply not be sufficient work to do. In bad times, those who enjoyed at best a marginal economic existence would be thrown into acute poverty. Bad harvests would send the price of bread, the staple food, up beyond the level at which the poor could afford to buy it. (Sharpe 1984: 9) Another reason for the worsening of the condition of the lowest classes was the dissolution of the monasteries, one of whose main functions had been to provide charity, and therefore to relieve the distress of a great many vagrants and beggars. Moreover, when Henry VIII seized the lands of the monasteries, monks were generally given a pension5 but all other members of these communities were deprived of home and income, with the result that several of those who had been working in them as gardeners, butchers, cooks, launderers, etc. became beggars. In their wanderings they came across other unemployed people, who had suffered from the more general precariousness in the labour market, particularly concerning the poorer trades. As Jütte confirms, In sixteenth-century England [...] most vagrants had worked in lowly positions before they took to the road. About a third were engaged in the production of food, leather goods, cloth and metal wares, and in mining or building; at least a quarter were servants, apprentices, journeymen, labourers and harvest workers, almost a fifth were petty chapmen, makers and sellers of 'small wares', entertainers and tinkers; and a tenth soldiers and mariners. (Jtltte 1994: 43)

pressure. He did not confine himself to fencing off lands that were his to enclose, but also annexed parts of the common pasture of the village. The villagers were thus denied vital rights of pasturage for their sheep and cattle, rights that had been established by custom and convention and were inadequately protected at law. Unemployment and depopulation might also result. Even when the encloser continued arable fanning on his enclosed lands he might easily effect labour economies and find it convenient to dispense with unnecessary houses standing on his enclosed fields. This risk was enormously increased when he converted arable to pasture, since the raising of sheep needed less men than com, and enclosure followed by conversion could thus mean acute local unemployment. (Ramsey 1972: 20-21) In spite of this economic provision, some monks and friars took to the road, which explains the severity of the tone used against them in the vagabond law of 1547.

9 Indeed, the ranks of discharged soldiers also provided members for the English underworld, as - when not involved in a war - they would not easily adjust to the needs of the labour market, and would instead roam around, surviving by means of stealing and petty crime. A testimony of a contemporary can be found in the words of Thomas More in his Utopia: "In the meantime the fellows devote all their energies to starving, if they do not to robbing." (Eng. transi, in Surz and Hexter 1965, 4: 63) 6 The situation of the poor was made harder by the steady rise in prices, due to the inflationary trends7 originating in particular from the great influx of silver from the New World and the continual debasements of the English coinage implemented by Henry VIII in 1527, 1543 and 1546 and by Edward VI in 1551, making the cost of food, clothing and rents particularly high. Cockburn (1977) has drawn a strict correlation between the levels of property crime and the trends in the price of foodstuffs, suggesting that during this period variations in the incidence of theft followed very closely fluctuations in the price of food. Besides this steady increase in prices, the situation was made even harder by frequent harvest failures: On average, there was a harvest failure every four years. Far more serious than the isolated cases were the occasions when the harvests were deficient or disastrous for two or three consecutive years, such as occurred in the middle years of the sixteenth century. It meant, in effect, that a majority of the poorer people in the areas concerned were short of food and drink for that period of time, particularly as a deficient harvest invariably led to a rise in the price of other foodstuffs. The labouring classes, which numbered anything from half to two-thirds of the population, were particularly hard hit. (Pound 1971: 15) A typical cause of poverty was the outbreak of serious epidemics, which not only killed many family breadwinners and left orphans and widows behind, but also incapacitated the victims and thus reduced their possibility of employment and therefore of income. Outbreaks of the plague are estimated to have occurred every ten or fifteen years in the larger European towns, killing a large percentage of the population and creating great A confirmation of the way of living undertaken by discharged soldiers can be found in the following quotation:

7

If Tudor vagrancy had any one starting point, it may have been the disruption caused by the long drawn out travail of the Wars of the Roses. When, at their conclusion, Henry VII succeeded in his effort to abolish private armies, the immediate result was to drive out of employment many professional soldiers as well as servants of noble households who frequently had as much experience in the use of arms as the soldiers themselves. [...] When we recall the soldiers on active service were badly paid (if they were paid at all) and discharged with only their weapons and their uniforms, we are unlikely to be surprised that so many of them turned to vagabondage or robbery with violence. They had the training, resources and opportunity to do little else. (Salgado 1992: 111) Beier provides some figures concerning the inflation growth in comparison to wage increases: Rises in food prices averaging about 4 per cent a year might not seem much by the standard of the 1970s and 1980s, but the inflation was sustained for nearly 150 years and had serious consequences. Those who did not produce their own food, which included most of the poor, had to purchase it at inflated prices in the marketplace. Meanwhile, wages were rising half as much as food prices because the supply of labour outran the demand: real wages for both agricultural and industrial labour fell by as much as 50 per cent. (Beier 1985: 20)

10 poverty problems. These plague epidemics did not only have direct consequences on individual families, but also disrupted the entire urban economy. As Jütte remarks, The ban on bringing in outside merchandise (e.g. raw materials) also had an impact on employment and marketing of goods. Especially in the important textile industries many people were thus out of work when an epidemic struck the city. This means that they were in most cases without money to buy food. More people than before were therefore in need of public or ecclesiastical poor relief. An epidemic in Salisbury in 1627, for example, left half the population of the town in need of relief. (Jütte 1994:23) A further cause of the increase in poverty was the great rise in the English population, which grew from three to over four million inhabitants between 1550 and 1600. The influence of this phenomenon on economic conditions is pointed out by Kishlansky: Population increase had a profound effect upon economic and social life. At the most basic level, there were more mouths to feed by the labour of a smaller proportion of the population, and this necessitated fundamental change. The sixteenth-century agrarian economy was predominantly a subsistence economy. Fanners produced a variety of grains and legumes, raised a small number of animals, and gathered what grew wild with the aim of providing all that their families needed to survive. They were neither dependent upon markets nor oriented towards them. The techniques they used to ensure survival were time-tested and conservative. (Kishlansky 1996: 89) This great population increase determined a move by many towards the towns, and London in particular8. Indeed, in the period examined here the population of London increased sixfold: from 60,000 in 1550 to 350,000 (Hill 1972: 40) or even 400,000 (Wrigley 1967: 44) in 1650, representing a percentage of 7 per cent of England's total population, compared to only 2 ιΛ per cent of the population of France living in Paris in the same period. The capital became a very important centre of trade, commerce, law and politics and its role in the English economy changed significantly: In the sixteenth century, London was important as being the largest town with the largest mercantile community and offering the widest range of urban amenities - but it was in no real sense the economic centre of the country. In the seventeenth century it became the centre of the economy - not only or even mainly because it became larger and its range of urban amenities became wider - but because the two dynamic factors conducing to change became increasingly channelled through it. (Fisher 1976: 210) This growth of London created greater possibilities of labour, especially as regards hostelry and entertainment. However, employment was often seasonal9 and job offers were

The greater growth of London compared to other towns is well demonstrated by the following figures:

9

In the early sixteenth century London had a population of about 60,000, there was one other town of more than 10,000, and not more than fourteen of more than 5,000. Between 1550 and 1650 a few places like Norwich, Newcastle, York and Bristol may have doubled or trebled to between 12,000 and 20,000, but London and its suburbs increased sixfold to about 350,000. By now London was clearly in a class by itself, and it went on growing to about 550,000 by the end of the century. (Stone 1966: 30) Pound (1962) estimates seasonal unemployment as being between 20 and 50 per cent of the labour force.

11 insufficient to meet the demand10. Moreover, due to the presence of many well organized charity foundations, the capital also attracted and housed numerous unemployed and destitute people, with the result that the number of beggars increased instead of diminishing. These vagabonds determined a rise in the crime rate, as they mostly lived on theft and other illegal activities. Also the increase in London's supply of entertainment and leisure activities determined more opportunities for gambling, illicit sexual activities, cheating and thieving, thus favouring the enlargement of the criminal underworld." The very size of London and the heterogeneity of its population greatly helped the discreditable, who found a safe refuge there, particularly in some poor and denselypopulated suburbs12 (especially in the district called 'Alsatia'13 and in the Southwark area), where the risk of being caught was low and social protection high14. When describing certain London suburbs, Henry Fielding commented: "the great irregularity of their Buildings, the immense Number of Lanes, Alleys, Courts and Bye-places, [make me think] that, had they been intended for the very purpose of Concealment, they could scarce have been better contrived" (1751: 76). Moreover, London was a very favourable place for disposing of stolen goods. As McMullan remarks, Because it was the cross-roads of the country, travelers were continually passing through, and thieves or their receiver-patrons could easily dispose of their takings to such populations. More usual outlets were peddlers and the shops being set up in increasing numbers in the streets and at fairs, in which thieves self-fenced their goods. Similarly, the expanding leisure trades, the hotel industry, and the catering trades were convenient stalling-kens where stolen articles were stored and later distributed. [...] The system of returning stolen property for a commission allowed some fences to open permanent offices and warehouses for the recovery of stolen

10 11

12

13

14

According to Hill ( 1969: 39), one out of seven inhabitants was unemployed or unemployable. According to McMullan, London was responsible for five major factors enhancing the opportunities for crime: (1) wider structural opportunities for theft, (2) a secrecy of operations, (3) established criminal habitats, (4) networks of criminal association, and (5) an elaborate black market for disposing of stolen goods. (McMullan 1984: 15) Tobias provides a very detailed explanation of how the London suburbs grew in a chaotic way and became densely-populated, thus being particular suitable for criminals' dwelling: In the poorer parts of London, above all in the East End, streets and alleys grew haphazardly and houses large and small were crammed together without any order or pattern, to make the greatest possible use of every piece of land. In many parts of the town small houses had over the years been built in what had been the gardens of larger houses, and as the pressure to find somewhere to live grew, second and third rows of houses had in some places been squeezed in between them. In consequence the blocks of land between major streets were often crisscrossed by a bewildering network of courts and alleys, twisting and turning as accident and the pattern of land ownership had dictated, in the interests of putting another building wherever it was conceivable to do so. It was in these crowded parts of the town that criminals mostly had their homes. (Tobias 1979: 8-9) Alsatia covered the area between Whitefriars and Carmelite Street, with the Thames as its southern boundary and Fleet Street to the north. This safety favoured the immigration of criminals to London. As Samaha rightly remarks, "living near to London made it easy for criminals to slip across the border into the city and get lost among its teaming nameless faces. This was especially true as the period progressed and the population expanded." (Samaha 1974: 35)

12 property, which thief and victim were encouraged to patronize. The institutionalization of such regular intermediaries, by guaranteeing that outlets would be available, encouraged thieves to steal regularly. (McMullan 1984: 23-4) One farther motive for the increase in the numbers of beggars and vagrants was the arrival of the gipsies in England. The presence in Europe of this ethnic group - generally considered to have originated in the Indian subcontinent - was first reported in the fourteenth century in the eastern European countries, from which they subsequently moved to the various western European nations. The gipsies arrived in England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and they immediately became easily recognizable, as they dressed in their own way, spoke a different language, travelled in groups15 and refused to integrate with the rest of the population. They were also looked upon with suspicion because of their interest in the occult and their claims that they could see into the future; their dabbling in magical cures and fortune-telling suggested possible witchcraft connection16. They were commonly suspected of living by thievish practices, as the following testimony provided in 1547 by Dr Andrew Borde - the first English man of letters to provide a well-informed discussion on gipsy manners and language - confirms: The people of the country [Egypt17] be swart and doth go disguised in their apparel contrary to other nations. They be light-fingered and use picking; they have little manner and evil lodging, and yet they be pleasant dancers. (Quoted in Judges 1965: XXV-XXVI) Soon official measures were taken against them: In 1530 Parliament legislated against them with exceptional severity, those who remained in the country being ordered to suffer imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. Twenty-four years later a felon's death was substituted for imprisonment. As the century progressed, difficulties arose over those of the race that were born in England, and in 1562, in an attempt to overcome the problem, it was decreed that anyone consorting with them or imitating their speech and behaviour was to be apprehended as a felon. (Pound 1971: 29) A further group of immigrants was constituted by the Irish, who fled from their homeland - particularly in periods of severe famine - to find better economic prospects. A direct testimony of their presence in England is given by Thomas Harman, who, in analysing the vagabond problem in his area, thus writes: There is aboue an hundreth of Irish men and women that wander about to begge for their lyuing, that hath come ouer within these two yeares. They say the[y] haue beene burned and spoyled by the Earle of Desmond, and report well of the Earle of Vrmond. (Harman 1566/1869: 82)

15

16

17

According to Beier (1974), however, gipsy groups were not very large; judging by the local records of searches and arrests, he comes to the conclusion that when gipsies were arrested, they were not in very large bands, as the maximum number of people arrested consisted of thirteen gipsies. As Kamen remarks, Gatherings of gypsies in their forest encampments could be mistaken for sabbaths, their performing animals for familiars, their dances for satanic orgies. (Kamen 1971: 393) Gipsies were commonly considered to have originated from Egypt.

13 The problems caused by this increase in the number of vagabonds and thieves were repeatedly tackled by the English high authorities; several 'poor laws' were issued (e.g. in 1536, 1547, 1549, 1572, 1597 and 1601), although they brought little improvement to the situation. These laws, however, introduced an important distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor: only the former could be provided with a licence - duly signed and sealed - allowing the holder to roam about and ask for alms on the streets and highways. Many of these licences, however, were soon counterfeited and used by rogues to circulate with some sort of legal protection.

1.2. The activities of the underworld

The activities in which the various members of the underworld were involved greatly depended on their personal situation, i.e on whether they could be considered 'deserving' or 'undeserving' poor. The former - whose right to beg was recognized and who commonly lived by public support - included the first two categories described by Harrison in the following passage: There is no common-wealth at this daie in Europe, wherin there is not great store of poore people, and those necessarilie to be relieued by the welthier sort, which otherwise would starne and come to vtter confusion. With vs, the poore is commonlie diuided into three sorts, so that some are poore by impotencie, as the fatherlesse child, the aged, blind and lame, and the diseased person that is iudged to be incurable: the second are poore by casualtie, as the wounded souldier, the decaied householder, and the sicke person visited with grieuous and painefull diseases: the third consistetti of thriftless poore, as the riotour that hath consumed all, the vagabund that will abide no where, but runneth vp and downe from place to place (as it were seeking worke and finding none), and finallie the roge and strumpet, which are not possible to be diuided in sunder. (Harrison 1577/1877: 212-213) Some of the 'undeserving poor' also went around begging, usually protected by a counterfeit licence; this was considered an illicit practice, as the many vagrancy acts passed in the sixteenth century had made begging itself by the able-bodied poor a crime, for which one could be punished and then sent back to one's place of residence and either put on relief or set to work18. In order to attract attention and alms, these vagabonds

18

Here is a passage from the Act of 1531 indicating the treatment to which the physically fit poor should be subjected: And be it further enacted [...] that if any man or woman being whole and mighty in body and able to labour having no land, master, nor using any lawful merchandise, craft, or mystery, whereby he might get his living [...] be vagrant and can give none reckoning how he doth lawfully get his living, that then it shall be lawful to the constables and all the King's officers, ministers, and subjects of every town, parish, and hamlet, to arrest the said vagabonds and idle persons and to bring them to any of the Justices of Peace of the same shire or liberty [ . . .] and that every such Justice of Peace [...] shall cause every such idle person so to him brought to be had to the next market town or other place where the said Justice of Peace [...] shall think most convenient [...] and there to be tied to the end of a cart naked and be beaten with whips

14

sometimes feigned illness, pretended madness or purported to be deaf and dumb, while some women would hire infants to carry with them on their begging circuits. Apart from begging, the members of the underworld were commonly involved in petty crimes, such as horse-stealing19, pocket-picking, house-breaking and shop-lifting. Here are some of the criminals' most frequent activities: Not only did they break into houses by night and pilfer the pigs and the poultry, but they were daring enough to pass a hook through the windows and draw the clothes off sleeping men; to rob men on the highway who were travelling home from fairs, and to come by night to lonely houses and force the owners to deliver up what money they had on the premises. (Leonard 1965: 12) Wandering criminals would find support in 'flash-houses', i.e. those public houses in which thieves could be sure of a welcome and companionship, get useful information about local conditions and receive the help they needed: If the keeper of the flash-house was not himself a fence, there would certainly be fences readily to hand, for one important facility offered by the criminal area was the easy disposal of stolen property. The more important and more easily identifiable items would pass through a network of hands until they could re-appear in honest trade without fear that they could be traced back to the original criminals. (Tobias 1979: 9) Other members of the underworld were involved in the illicit practices of gaming and prostitution. As regards the former activity, there were several ways (called 'laws' in the canting language) to cheat at cards, dice or bowls and thus trick the gullible. As regards the latter, the most common crime consisted in blackmailing the client with the help of a prostitute. The highways provided plenty of opportunities for robbers, often guided by innkeepers, who would tell them which guests were worth robbing and what direction they were travelling in. According to Linebaugh, former butchers and market people were often involved in this crime: Highway robbery, like other acts of appropriation, posed problems concerning knowledge of targets, techniques of appropriation, methods of flight and means of disposal. Butchers and market people gained the experience from their workday lives to solve them. Through friendly

19

throughout the same market town or other place till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after such punishment and whipping had, the person so punished [...] shall be enjoined upon his oath to return forthwith without delay in the next and straight way to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the same punishment by the space of three years, and there put himself to labour like as a true man oweth to do. (Statutes of the Realm, iii: 328) Horse stealing was much more frequent than the theft of cattle and was considered more serious than the theft of sheep: This was perhaps because sheep and cattle were less valuable, or difficult to dispose of, and certainly more difficult to move around in large numbers, and thus did not attract gang enterprise. Cattle-theft seems to have been very rare, and certainly prosecutions were few and far between. Sheep-stealing was much more common, but it was likely to be the work of local men rather than a marauding gang, and the sheep were likely to be taken for consumption rather than for the money they might bring. (Beattie 1986:170)

15 innkeepers or market gossip they would know, for instance, when a drover or grazier returned from market with gold or silver on his person. From years of carting or driving animals to market, they were familiar with the terrain. Their dealings in market and at cook-shops, victualling houses and inns provided them with numerous possibilities of sale and disposal. The economic processes that had squeezed many of them out of customary patterns of work or trade multiplied the possibilities of disposal. In several senses they were expert at undertaking that fatal leap by which some useful things - in this case, game, poultry, livestock - were transformed into its 'value form' - money. (Linebaugh 1991: 210) Robbery on the highway became one of the crimes most severely denounced by writers of roguish literature, not only because it threatened the safety of the individual, but especially because it endangered the freedom of travel and was therefore considered "a great obstruction to trade", as a group of Bristol merchants complained in 1723 (quoted in Beattie 1986: 148). Although they operated on the open road, most of the highwaymen were based in London: Indeed, it was places like Hounslow Heath and Epping Forest, country areas lying very close to the metropolis, which were the principal scene of the highwaymen's activities and the most dangerous parts to have to pass through. Moreover, it was to London that the highwaymen returned after a successful foray, and it was in the obscurity of London that they sought refuge, as a rule, when the pursuit was hot. (Tobias 1979:17) A great deal of information about the roguish activities of the underworld can be derived from the detailed descriptions provided by the copious 16th-18th centuiy literature concerning this social class. Although modern studies on the subject tend to see this phenomenon in a less gloomy perspective, these works suggest the existence of a vast wellorganized criminal group, whose practices were considered particularly menacing by the contemporary society. A confirmation of these descriptions can be found in the explanations of the entries of the various canting dictionaries and glossaries which will be analysed in the following chapters.

Chapter 2

Early Canting Literature

Early canting literature presented the underworld as a criminal class separated from the rest of English society not only by the illicit practices of its members, but also by their own secret language. This secret jargon - which they called canting or cant - contained the terms commonly used by beggars and thieves to denote the essential elements connected with their mischievous way of living; it defined their tools, the main techniques they used, the different subgroups into which the underworld was organized, and provided the names by which the various individuals were to be called. Indeed, this differentiated social world - although united by a specific common argot - was divided into separate 'orders', each with its own criminal activities and specializations, and often controlling a particular territory of operation. This secret language began to be described in the 16th century, not merely in its main lexical elements, but also in its principal constituent features. Justice Harman - a pioneer in the description of cant - immediately pointed out its anti-social characteristics, which allowed rogues to have a jargon by which they could not be understood by the rest of society. Moreover, this language acted as an identification code, which allowed its speakers to be admitted to particular criminal groups and practices. Canting expressions were considered extraneous to the English language by the early works on the underground, which commonly attributed their origin to other tongues, such as Romany, the language spoken by gipsies. Modern historians have often enquired into the reliability of these early works on canting; one way of proving the authenticity of the expressions reported in them would be their occurrence in contemporary official documents. Unfortunately, court records, which would logically be the main source of information about this criminal language, were scarse in this period and very few of them have survived to this day and age. The few testimonies that have been found confirm the validity of the terms mentioned, although they tell us little about when or how frequently they were used. Another way of assessing the reliability of these expressions is the comparison between the various canting dictionaries and glossaries, which remain the main source of information available. Although many of them contain plagiarisms from previous works, the information they provide is plentiful and at times innovative, often correcting details which have appeared before. The accurate analysis of these lexicographic works is the object of this volume; the analysis starts in this chapter, which takes into consideration the main literature pertaining to this subject written in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

17

2.1. The Highway to the Spital-House

The Highway to the Spital-House - written by Robert Copland in 1535-6 - adopts the form of a dialogue between the author and the porter of a London hospital - in all probability St. Bartholomew's - concerning the people who find relief there: real beggars as well as impostors. In the dialogue various types of knaves are described, together with examples of their deeds: some are false invalids endowed with stilts and crutches or "with bloody clouts all about their leg" (p. 7)1, while others "counterfeit lepry, and some put soap in their mouth to make it scum" (p. 7). Another group of vagabonds is made up of discharged soldiers "that have served the king beyond the sea, and now that they out of wages be they must beg, or else go bribe and steal" (p. 7). Many, however, pretend to be soldiers, who "will run away and perchance carry with them what they may; and so when a man would bring them to thrift, they will him rob and from his good[s] him lift" (p. 7). Common beggars too frequently take advantage of every opportunity, "prowling and poaching to get somewhat at every door, lumps of bread or meat" (p. 8). They are matched by impostors posing as clerks or rogers, "that daily sing and pray with Ave regina, or De profundis [...] and say they come from Oxford and Cambridge, and be poor scholars and have no manner thing, nor also friends to keep them at learning, and so do loiter for crust and crumb" (p. 9). A similar category is that of clewners, which includes people who "say they come from the university" (p. 10) and sapients, who - speaking an invented language that people cannot understand - pretend to be physicians and will get people to pay them money for their fake cures and false medicines. The various members of this underworld also include rußlers and "masterless men" that is, unemployed people who lead an idle life and "sleepeth by day, and walketh in the dark" (p. 15), leading a disorderly life and forming bands with the only aim of enjoying themselves in taverns and inns and "with common women daily for to haunt" (p. 15). This nocturnal world is peopled by persons linked not only with crime, but also with prostitution, whose many figures are thus listed by the porter: "lechers, fornicators and advouterers, incests, harlots, bawds, and bolsterers, apple-squires, enticers, and ravishers" (p. 19). The term apple-squire appearing in this list is a canting term indicating a harlot's attendant or pimp. Finally, the porter quotes a short passage of the jargon spoken by these beggars and rogues, although he does not provide a translation of it into standard English: With bousy cove maund nase, Tour the patrico in the darkman case, Docked the dell for a copper make: His watch shall feng a prounce's nab-cheat. Cyarum, by Solomon, and thou shalt peck my j ere In thy gan; for my watch it is nace gear; or the bene bouse my watch hath a wyn. (p. 24)

Quotations are taken from the version edited by Judges (1965: 1-25).

18 This jargon is referred to as "babbling French" (p. 24) by the porter, to denote it as a language foreign to the one commonly spoken by normal people, and - similar to babbling - which is difficult for interlocutors to understand.

2.2. A Manifest Detection

The complete title of the book - commonly attributed to Gilbert Walker - is A Manifest Detection of the Most Vile and Detestable Use of Dice-Play, and Other Practices like the Same (1552) and clearly indicates the subject of the pamphlet. The purpose of the work which is well defined in its subtitle2 - is to make people aware of the mischievous devices and tricks used in the world of dice-playing and other similar activities such as cardplaying to cheat players and prey especially upon the upper classes of society. The pamphlet consists of a dialogue between two gentlemen, the younger talking about the experiences in which he has been involved and the older at first just listening and making comments, but in the second part giving evidence of more tricks and devices, thus testifying to his own personal experience in the field. The older speaker also reveals many of the particular expressions used by the members of this underworld, which are likened to the terms of a specialized language, but whose main purpose is to guarantee the obscurity of their talk and the impossibility of decoding by its non-members: Ye must consider that a carpenter hath many terms, familiar enough to his 'prentices, that other folk understand not at all; and so have the cheaters, not without great need, for a falsehood, once detected, can never compass the desired effect, (p. 36)

Some of these terms - those commonly used by dishonest players to denote altered dice are listed in a table prefixed to the text of the dialogue: barred cinque-deuces, flat cinquedeuces, flat sice-aces, barred sice-aces, barred cater-treys, flat cater-treys, fullams, light graviers, langrets, gourds, demies, long dice, bristles and direct contraries (p. 27). The description of these false dice - and of their cheating purpose - is given in the course of the dialogue. Here is an extract: Lo here [...] a well-favoured die, that seemeth good and square; yet is the forehead longer on the cater and trey than any other way, and therefore holdeth the name of a langret. Such be also called barred cater-treys, because commonly, the longer end will, of his own sway, draw downwards, and turn up to the eye sice, cinque, deuce, or ace. The principal use of them is at novem quinqué. So long as a pair of barred cater-treys be walking on the board, so long can ye cast neither 5 nor 9, unless it be, by a great mischance, that the roughness of the board, or some other stay, force them to stay and run against their kind; for without cater-trey ye wot that 5 nor 9 can never fall. (p. 39)

2

The subtitle is "A mirror very necessary for all young gentlemen and others suddenly enabled by wordly abundance to look in. Newly set forth for their behoof'. The copy of the pamphlet taken into consideration here is the one edited by Judges (1965: 26-50).

19

A canting name has also been coined for regular dice - squariers (p. 41) - which are to be used at the beginning of the game so as not to make the victim suspect anything. More expressions are introduced in the course of the dialogue: these dishonest players call themselves cheators and their altered dice cheaters (p. 35); their prospective victims called cousins (p. 40) - must be robbed of their bit (money) from their buy (purse), "whether it be in great cogs or in small, that is gold or silver" (p. 40). The various tactics used by cheators are called laws·, for instance, they "give they their own conveyance the name of cheating law, [...] sacking law signifieth whoredom, high law, robbery; figging law, pickpurse craft" (pp. 35-36). Other expressions are foisting (p. 39) - that is, the decision to insert or draw out the false dice -, cogging (p. 41) - i.e. cheating at play - and barnard's law, a way of cheating "which, to be exactly practised, asketh four persons at the least, each of them to play a long several part by himself' (p. 47). These four people are: the taker-up, whose duty is to attract a cousin·, he is accompanied by the verser, "a man of more worship than himself, that hath the countenance of a possessioner of land" (p. 47). They take the cousin to a tavern, where they meet an accomplice (the barnard), who - by means of illicit practices - succeeds in depriving him of his money while playing cards. If the victim "begins to smoke" (p. 48) (i.e. to suspect of anything), a fourth member of the gang - the rutter - starts a fight, creating a situation of confusion in the tavern, during which his accomplices manage to flee, leaving the victim there deprived of his money. The last part of the dialogue contains a few more canting expressions pertaining to thieving, such as the verb fig (to steal) and the nouns figger and fig-boy, used to refer to pickpockets.

2.3. The Fratemitye

ofVacabondes

The Fratemitye of Vacabondes (1561) by John Awdeley introduces a taxomic categorization of various types of vagabonds. The pamphlet is divided into two parts: the first contains a short description of different kinds of country rogues together with three short texts concerning the activities of some town members of the underworld; the second part deals with "the twenty-five orders of knaves", for which it provides names never to be found in subsequent publications on the underworld. The first part contains several canting terms, which were to be borrowed by later writers; most refer to names given to people, such as the following: - Abraham Man: "He that walketh bare armed, and bare legged, and fayneth hym selfe mad"3; - Ruffeler: "[He] goeth wyth a weapon to seeke seniice, saying he hath bene a Seruitor'in the wars, and beggeth for his reliefe"; - Prygman: "[He] goeth with a stycke in hys hand like an idle person. His propertye is to steale cloathes of the hedge [...] or els filtch Poultry";

3

Quotations are taken from the text edited by Viles and Fumivall (1869: 1-16).

20 - Whipiacke: "[He] is one, that by coulor of a counterfaite Lisence [...] doth vse to beg lyke a Maryner, But hys chiefest trade is to rob Bowthes in a Faire, or to pilfer ware from staules"; - Frater. "A Frater goeth wyth a like Lisence to beg for some Spittlehouse or Hospital. Their pray is commonly vpon poore women as they go and come to the Markets"; - Quire Bird\ "[He] is one that came lately out of prison, & goeth to seeke seruice. He is commonly a stealer of Horses"; - Pfiggar of Paulfreys: stealer of horses; - Vpright Man: "One that goeth wyth the trunchion of a staffe. [...] This man is of so much authority, that meeting with any of his profession, he may cal them to accompt, & commaund a share or snap vnto him selfe, of al that they haue gained by their trade in one moneth"; - Doxies: beggars' harlots, "especially all which go abroade working laces and shirt siringes"; - Curtail: "[He] is much like to the Vpright man, but hys authority is not fully so great"; -Altham: A Curtall's wife; - Palliard: "he that goeth in a patched cloke"; - Irishe Toyle: "He that carieth his ware in hys wallet, as laces, pins, poyntes, and such like"; - Iackeman: "He that can write and reade, and somtime speake latin"; - Swygman: "A Swygman goeth with a Pedlers pack"; - Washman: "He vseth to lye in the hye way with lame or sore legs or armes to beg"; - Tinkard: "[He] leaueth his bag a sweating at the Alehouse, [...] and in the meane season goeth abrode a begging"; - Wylde Roge: "He that hath no abiding place but by his coulour of going abrode to beg, is commonly to seeke some kinsman of his"; - Kitchin Co: "an ydle runagate Boy"; - Kitchin Mortes: "A Kitchin Mortes is a Gyrle, she is brought at her full age to the Vpright man to be broken, and so she is called a Doxy, vntil she come to ye honor of an Altham"; - Patriarke Co: "[He] doth make mariages"; - Curtesy Man : "These kind of ydle vacabondes wyll go commonly well appareled, without any weapon, and in place where they meete together, as at their hosteryes or other places, they wyll beare the port of ryght good gentlemen, & some are the more trusted, but commonly thei pay them with stealing a paire of sheetes, or Couerlet, & so take their farewell earely in the morning, before the mayster or dame be sturring"; - Cheatour or Fingeren He who entices young rich men to playing cards or dice and dishonestly wins their money; - Ring Faller: "He that getteth fayre copper rings, some made like signets, & some after other fashions, very faire gylded, & walketh vp and down the streetes, til he spieth some man of the country, or some other simple body whom he thinketh he may deceaue, and so goeth a lyttle before him or them, and letteth fall one of these ringes, which when the party that commeth after spieth and taketh it vp, he hauing an eye backward, crieth hälfe part, the party that taketh it vp, thinking it to be of great value, profereth him some money for his part. "

21 Another semantic field covered by this work concerns the actions performed by the members of the underworld; those mentioned by Awdeley are the following: - Storing of the Rogeman: to steale clothes from the hedges; - Heauing of the Bowth: to pilfer wares from stalls. Other canting expressions reported by Awdely concern items or places strictly connected with the activities of the underworld, such as: - Gybe: a counterfeit licence; - Iarckes: counterfeit seals; - Filtchman: staff; - Bowsing In: alehouse. The last part of the pamphlet provides the listing of the following twenty-five types of knaves, which mainly represent careless, unfaithful or mischievous servants: 1. Troll and Troll By. "He that would beare rule in a place, and hath none authority nor thanke, & at last is thrust out of the doore like a knaue." 2. Troll With: "He that no man shall know the seruaunt from ye Maister. This knaue with his cap on his head like Capon hardy, wyll syt downe by his Maister, or els go cheeke by cheeke with him in the streete." 3. Troll Hazard or Trace: "He that goeth behynde his Maister as far as he may see hym. Such knaues commonly vse to buy Spice-cakes, Apples, or other trifles, and doo eate them as they go in the streetes lyke vacabond Boyes." 4. Troll Hazard or Tritrace: "He that goeth gaping after his Master, looking to and fro tyl he haue lost him. [...] When his Maister nedeth him, he is to seeke." 5. Chafe Litter: "He that wyll plucke vp the Fether-bed or atrice, and pysse in the bedstraw, and wyll neuer ryse vncalled. This knaue berayeth many times in the corners of his Maisters chamber, or other places inconuenient, and maketh cleane hys shooes with the couerlet or curtaines." 6. Obloquium: "He that wyll take a tale out of his Maisters mouth and tell it him selfe." 7. Rince Pytcher. "He that will drinke out his thrift at the ale or wine, and be oft times dronke." 8. Jeffrey Gods Fo: "This is such a lying knaue that none wil beleue him, for the more he sweareth, ye les he is to be beleued." 9. Nichol Hartles: "This is a Trewand knaue that faineth himselfe sicke when he should woorke." 10. Simon Soone Agon: "This is a loytring knaue that wil hide him in a corner and sleepe or els run away." 11. Grene Winchard: "This is a slouthfull knaue, that had leauer go lyke a begger then cleanly." 12. Proctour: "He, that will tary long, and bring a lye, when his Maister sendeth him on his errand." 13. Commitour ofTidinges: He, that is ready to bring his Maister Nouels and tidings, whether they be true or false. " 14. Gyle Hather: "He, that wyll stand by his Maister when he is at dinner, and byd him beware that he eate no raw meate, because he would eate it himselfe."

22 15. Bawde Phisicke: "He that is a Cocke, when his Maysters meate is euyll dressed, and he challenging him therefore, he wyl say he wyll eate the rawest morsel thereof him selfe." 16. Mounch Present: "This is a bold knaue, that sometyme will eate the best and leaue the worst for his Mayster." 17. Cole Prophet'. "He, that when his Maister sendeth him on his errand, he wyl tel his answer thereof to his Maister or he depart from hym." 18. Cory Fauell: "He, that wyl lye in his bed, and cory the bed bordes in which hee lyeth in steede of his horse." 19. Dyng Thrift: "Such false knaues oft tymes, wil sell their Maisters meate to their owne profit." 20. Esen Droppers: "Esen Droppers bene they, that stand vnder mens wales or windowes, or in any other place, to heare the secretes of a mans house." 21. Choplogyke: "He that when his mayster rebuketh him of hys fault he wyll geue hym .XX. wordes for one, els byd the deuils Pater noster in silence." 22. Vnthrifte: "This rechles knaue wyl ahvay be lousy: and say that hee hath no more shift of clothes, and slaunder his Maister." 23. Vngracious: "This Knaue wil sit at the alehouse drinking or playing at dice, or at other games at seruice tyme." 24. Nunquam: "He that when his maister sendeth him on his errand he wil not come againe of an hour or two where he might haue done it in hälfe an hour or lesse." 25. Ingratos: "This knaue is so ingrate or vnkind, that he considreth not his frend from his fo, & wil requit euil for good & being put most in trust, wil sonest deceiue his maister."

2.4. A Caueat or Wareningfor Commen Cvrsetors4 Vvlgarely Called Vagabones

Thomas Harman, who published this work in 1566, was a country magistrate living in Kent, where he had direct testimony of the vagabonds travelling on the neighbouring highroad to London since many of them called at his door for charity. Thus he was able to collect precious information about their lives and jargon, which supplied the material for his book, considered the most reliable account of the habits and expressions of the undeworld in the sixteenth century. Indeed, most of the succeeding underworld literature relied heavily on the details and terms contained in this publication. The work was written as a sort of handbook for the magistrate, thus providing useful information "for the utilité and proflyt of his naturali Cuntrey". Indeed, his aim is to urge "Iusticers and Shreeues" to be very vigilant in their districts and to punish these

4

In 'The Epistle to the Reader1 prefixed to the second edition of his work, Thomas Harman specifies that he has chosen the noun cursetors to refer to vagabonds as he thinks that this Latinate term expresses very well the concept of "numeres or rangers aboute the countrey, [as it is] deriued of this Laten word (Curro)" (p. 27). The text quoted here is the one edited by Viles and Fumivall (1869: 17-91).

23

"malefactores"; he then invites "the Counstables, Bayliffes, and bosholders" to set aside "all feare, slouth and pytie" and "be more circomspect in executing the charg geuen them by the aforesayd Iusticers" (p. 21). The result of their stricter behaviour will have very positive consequences on life in the country: Then wyll no more this rascall rablement raunge about the countrey. Then greater reliefe may be shewed to the pouerty of eche parishe. Then shall we kepe our Horses in our pastures vnstolen. Then our lynnen clothes shall and maye lye safelye one our hedges vntouched. Then shall we not haue our clothes and lynnen hoked out at our wyndowes as well by day as by night. Then shall we not haue our houses broken vp in the night [...]. Then shall we safely kepe our pigges and poultrey from pylfring. Then shall we surely passe by the high waies leading to markets and fayres vnharmed. Then shall our Shopes and bothes be vnpycked and spoyled. (p. 21)

Harman devotes the rest of his book to the description of "these peuish, peruerse, and pestilent people" (p. 22) and of their "leud language", which he refers to as "pedlers French or Canting" (p. 24). The various chapters of his book deal with different types of rogues: some have already been introduced by Awdeley, while others appear here for the first time. The latter are the following: - Hoker or Anggler. "They practise there pylfringe, it is all by night; [...] they customably carry with them a staffe of v. or vi. foote long, in which, within one ynch of the tope therof, ys a lyte hole bored through, in which hole they putte an yron hoke, and with the same they wyll pluck vnto them quickly any thing that they may reche ther with". - Prygger of Prauncers: Horse stealer. - Freshwater Mariners·. "These wyll runne about the countrey wyth a counterfet lycence, fayninge either shypwracke, or spoyled by Pyrates". - Counterfet Cranke: "These [...] be yong knaues and yonge harlots, that depely dissemble the falling sicknes." - Dommerar: "These Dommerars are leud and most subtyll people: the moste part of these are Walch men, and wyll neuer speake, vnlesse they haue extreame punishment, but wyll gape, and with a maruelous fource wyll hold downe their toungs doubled, groning for your charyty, and holding vp their handes full pitiously, so that with their deepe dissimulation they get very much." - Swadder or Pedler. "These Swadders and Pedlers bee not all euyll, but of an indifferent behauiour. These stand in great awe of the vpright men, for they haue often both wares and money of them." - Demaunder for Glymmar. "These [...] be for the moste parte wemen; for glymmar, in their language, is fyre. These goe with fayned lycences and counterfayted wrytings, hauing the hands and seales of suche gentlemen as dwelleth nere to the place where they fayne them selues to haue bene burnt, and their goods consumed with fyre. They wyll most lamentable demaunde your charitie, and wyll quicklye shed salte teares, they be so tender harted." - Bawdy Basket "These [...] be also wemen, and go with baskets and Capeases on their armes, where in they haue laces, pynnes, nedles, white ynkell, and round sylke gyrdles of al coulours. These wyl bye conneyskins, and steale linen clothes of on hedges." -Autem Mort: "These Autem Mortes be maried wemen, as there be but a fewe. For Autem in their Language is a Churche".

24

- Walking Mort: "These walkinge Mortes be not maryed: [...] Manye of these hath hadde and haue chyldren: when these get ought, either with begging, bychery, or brybery, as money or appareil, they are quickly shaken out of all by the vpright men". - Dell: "A Dell is a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not yet knowen or broken by the vpright man." Some of the names previously listed by Awdeley are mentioned by Thomas Harman in a slightly different form: Patriarke Co is reported as Patrico, and Iackeman as Iarkeman, while Kitchin Co and Kitchin Morte are rendered as Kynchin Co and Kynchin Morte. The term Clapperdogens is instead inserted as a synonym of Pallyard, a term already mentioned in The Fraternitye of Vacabondes. In his pamphlet Thomas Harman also inserts a short glossary of the most common canting terms used by members of the underworld; these refer to the most essential elements to be found in their everyday life, such as the following: - Parts of the body: nab (head), glasyers (eyes), smelling chete (nose), gan (mouth), pratling chete (tongue), crashing chetes (teeth), hearing chetes (eares), fambles (hands), quaromes (body), prat (buttock), stampes (legs); - Clothes and personal objects: nabchet (hat or cap), fambling chete (hand ring), caster (cloak), togeman (coat), commission (shirt), drawers (hose), stampers (shoes), mofling chete (napkin), belly chete (apron), dudes (clothes), bunge (purse); - Objects of the house: slate (sheet), lybbege (bed), gygger (door); - Money and valuable objects: lowre (money), mynt (gold), bord (shilling), hälfe a borde (sixpence), flagg (groat), wyn (penny), make (halfpenny); - Food and drink: bowse (drink), gage (quart pot), skew (cup), pannam (bread), cassan (cheese), yaram (milk), lap (butter milk or whey), pek (meat), poppelars (porridge), ruff pek (bacon), grannam (corn), rome bouse (wine), läge (water), crassinge chetes (apples, pears or any other fruit); - Animals: grunting chete or patríeos kynchen (pig), cackling chete (cock or capon), margery prater (hen), roger or the tyb of the buttery (goose), quakinge chete or red shanke (drake or duck), lowinge chete (cow), bletinge chete (calf or sheep), prauncer (horse), bufe (dog); - People: patrico (priest), nosegent (nun), rome mort (the Queen), gentry morte (noble or gentle woman), quyer cuffyn (Justice of Peace), harman beck (constable); - Places: autem (church), ken (house), staulinge ken (house that will receive stolen goods), bousing ken (alehouse), lypken (house to lie in), skypper (barn), gentry cofes ken (noble house), Rome vile (London), dewse a vyle (country), quyerkyn (prison), hygh pad (highway), ruffmans (wood or bushes), smellinge chete (garden or orchard); - Other nouns: Salomon (altar or mass), glymmar (fire), strommel (straw), lightmans (day), darkemans (night), harmans (stocks), quier crampinges (bolts or fetters), tryninge (hanging), chattes (the gallows), gybe (document), iarke (seal); - Common adjectives: bene (good), benshyp (very good), quier (bad); - Common verbs: to fylche (to beat, to strike, to rob), to cut (to say), to towre (to see), to bowse (to drink), to maunde (to ask or require), to stall (to make or order), to cant (to speak), to prygge (to ride), to nygle (to have to do with a woman carnally); - Common expressions: to nyp a boung (to cut a purse), to skowe the cramprings (to wear bolts or fetters), to heue a bough (to rob a booth), to cly the gerke (to be whipped), to cut

25

benle (to speak gently), to cutte bene whydds (to speak good words), to cutte quyre whyddes (to speak evil words), to myll a ken (to rob a house), to dup the gyger (to open the door), to couch a hogshead (to lie down and sleep), stow you (hold your peace), bynge a waste (go you hence), to the ruffian (to the devil), the ruffian cly the (the devil take you). This glossary is followed by a dialogue in canting between an Upright Man and a Roge; each line of the dialogue is translated into the standard language. From this sample, we can see that canting is not an autonomous language, since - as Harman himself remarks it is "hälfe myngled with Englyshe" (p. 82). Indeed, as can be seen from the following extract, the language of the underworld has a parasitic nature, as it makes use of the grammatical words and syntactic rules of the standard language but recurs to a lexicon of its own: This bouse is as benshyp as rome bouse. This drinke is as good as wyne. Now I tower that bene bouse makes nase nabes. Now I see that good drinke makes a dronken heade. Maunde of this morte what bene pecke is in her ken. Aske of this wyfe what good meate shee hath in her house.

As can be seen, the syntactic rules that are applied in the sentences above - e.g. for expressing comparison, for introducing a dependent clause or an indirect question - are the same in the two languages, as well as the main adverbs, prepositions, auxiliaries and conjunctions used to express them.

2.5. Robert Greene's conny-catching pamphlets

Robert Greene wrote five pamphlets about some of London's professional rascals, mainly consisting of card-sharpers and dishonest colliers. The first pamphlet (Notable Discovery of Coosnage) appeared in 1591, and its success was so great that it was followed in the same year by another work of the same kind (Second Part of Conny-catching). The following year one more pamphlet was published, recalling the other two in its title (Third and Last Part of Conny-catching). As these pamphlets had become best-sellers, Greene was able in the short remainder of his life5 to write two more on the same subject: A Dispvtation betweene a Hee Conny-catcher and a Shee Conny-catcher and The Blacke Bookes Messenger. In these five publications Greene did not only tell very lively stories about the various mischievous ways in which malefactors took advantage of their wealthy victims, but also made known some of the canting terms adopted by the members of the underworld to refer to themselves and their tricks. The expressions referring to dishonest people are: conny-catcher (swindler, especially at playing cards), cross-biter (harlot's bully, commonly also a thief and blackmailer),

5

Robert Greene died on 3rd September 1592.

26 pander (procuress), apple-squire (procurer), commodity or traffic (harlot), leger (a collier that defrauds his customers), high lawyer (highwayman), scrippet (he who sets watch when a concerted robbeiy is being prepared), oak (he who keeps watch), foist (pickpocket), nip (cut-purse thief), priggar (house-thief), martar (he who receives a stolen horse and sells it on a market), lance-man (a priggar that rides on his own horse), trailer (a priggar that goes on foot), rifler (toller, i.e. a toll-collector or tax-gatherer), knight of the post or querry (perjurer), bawker (dishonest player at bowls), gripe (accomplice of a bawker), snap or cloyer (hanger-on who demands a share of a pickpocket's booty), stale or stall (pickpocket's accomplice), lift or lifter (shoplifter), markar (shoplifter's accomplice), santar (other shoplifter's accomplice), curber or hooker (stealer with a hook), warp (curbeds accomplice), diver (a sort of curber who steals with the help of a boy), charm (lock-picker), stand (a charm's accomplice), fool-taker (purse-stealer), beater ("he that drawes the fish to the bait"), retriever (the same as a verser in the barnard's law, cf p. 23), pot hunter (the same as a barnacle in the barnard's law). The victim of a cross-biter is called a simpler, while that of a highway robbery is called martin·, Vincent, instead, is the victim of a Vincent's law ("coosenage at Bowls"). Another term for somebody to be cheated is bird, while haggard is a prospective victim that will not take the swindlers' bait. The act of surrendering to a highwayman is termed stooping. Greene also makes reference to the commonest tricks, many of which had already been reported by Gilbert Walker, such as the barnard's law·, in the description of the latter, however, Greene mentions only three of the original four accomplices, i.e. the taker up (who is here called setter), the verser and the barnacle. Other illegal practices are: versing law (the passing of counterfeit money on to an innocent person), figging law (pickpocketry), cheating law (cheating at dice or at cards), black art (lock-picking), prigging law (horse-stealing), curbing law (the stealing of property by means of hooked staves), lifting law (stealing of parcels), farcing (lock-picking), sacking (prostitution), fooltaking ("the Arte [of] deceiving a gentleman of his purse"), batfowling (conny-catching), beating the bush ("the fetching in a Conny"), stooping to the lure (taking in the dupe), creeping law ("Law of petty theeues, that rob about the Subuibes"), lymitting law ("discoursing the orders of such as followe Iudges, in their circuites, and goe about from Fayre to fayre") Jugging law (connected with "the disorders at Nyneholes and Ryfling [i.e. dicing] for the benefite of the Cut-purses"), stripping law ("the lewde abuses of sundry Iaylors in England"). Other canting nouns quoted by Greene are: purchase (the money that is illegally wun), fermage (money dishonestly got by means of a Vincent's law), snap or snappage (share), shells (money), bung (purse), cuttle bung (knife), garbage (stolen goods), pelfry (booty), wresters or wrests (lock-picking tools), lime-twigs (faked playing-cards), shrap (wine), curbe (hook), snappings (stolen goods), tricker (the tool to open the window). Greene also mentions the following canting verbs: smoke (identify a prospective victim; suspect), draw or strike (steal), cloy (arrest), nip (be a cut-purse; practise robbery by purse-cutting), foist (cut a pocket; rob by cutting pockets), lift (shoplift). The terms referring to places reported by Greene are trugging place or trugging house (whore house), All Hallows (the tolling place, i.e. that at which the toll or tax is levied) and bush (tavern).

27 2.6. Dekker's publications

Thomas Dekker wrote at least two works6 on the underworld of his times. The Belman of London (1608)7 and Lanthorne and Candle-light (1608). These publications mainly draw their materials from previous works, and in particular from Harman's and Greene's; indeed, the listing of rogue types is derived from A Caueat or Warening for Commen Cvrsetors Vvlgarely Called Vagabones, as are most of the canting terms mentioned in the two pamphlets. Dekker, however, introduced new materials here and there, as well as new names for roguish figures, the items they used and the criminal activities in which they were involved. In the table prefixed to The Belman of London the author lists the main "villanies" to be found in this field, to denote which he uses the traditional canting expressions: Cheating Law, Bernards Law, Vincents Law, the black Art, Corbing Law, Prigging Law, Lifting Law, High Law, Sacking Law and Figging Law. He then takes into consideration the various rogue types, giving descriptions of them mainly derived from Awdeley's and Harman's books; the types taken into consideration are the following: Vprightman, Ruffler, Angler, Rogue, wilde Rogue, Prigger of Prancers, Palliard, Frater, Quire bird, Abrahamman, Whipiack, counterfeit Crank, Dummerar, Iacke-man, Patrico, Irish Toyle, Swigman, kinchin Coe, kinchin Mort, Dell, Doxie, walking Mort, Autem mort, Bawdy basket, Demaunders of Glimmer. Although he takes most of his materials from previous sources, Thomas Dekker enriches them with details of his own, such as hints on the etymology of the canting terms, as can be seen in the following example: A Queer-bird (Awdeley): A queer-bird is one that came lately out of prison and goeth to seek service. He is commonly a stealer of horses, which they term a prigger of palfreys. A Quire-bird (Dekker): Your Quire-birds are such as haue sung in such Cages as Newgate, or a Countrie Gaole, and hauing their belles giuen them to fly, they seek presently to build their nests under some honest mans roofe, not with intent to bring him in any profit, but onely to put themselues into money or appareil (though it bee by filching) and then they take thir flight.8

The third - O per se O - was published anonymously in 1612. Its first part is a mere reprint of Dekker's Lanthorne and Candle-light, while the second part represents its continuation. According to Judges, Dekker's authorship is dubious:

7

8

It has not been established definitely as the fruit of Dekker's industry - it is inferior in literary quality to most of his prose publications - and may well have been the work of one of his hackwriting contemporaries. (Judges 1965: 514) Although this work bears no mention of the author, it is commonly attributed to Dekker: Dekker's authorship of The Belman, despite the pamphlet's anonymity, has never been questioned, and has been based on the allusions to it as a prior work in the dedication to Lanthorne and Candlelight, which is signed by Dekker. The military metaphors beginning this dedication echo those which concluded The Belman, and express the same idea: an army will be drawn up to fight the rebels. (Waage 1977: 383) Quotations are taken from the microfilm copy of the first edition made by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Mich.

28 The author then takes into consideration the various illicit practices, starting from the cheating law, this part is mainly taken from Gilbert Walker's Manifest Detection, as the names of the false dice testify: bard sincke Dewces, Flat sincke Dewces, Flat sice Aces, bard sice Aces, Bard cater treas, Flat Cater Treas, Fullams, light Graniers, Langrets, Gordes, Demies, Long Dice for euen and od, bristles, Direct contraries. In dealing with the Barnards Law, its various figures are mentioned - Taker, Cozen, Verser, Barnard, Rutter - together with their respective functions and techniques. It is then the turn of the Vincents Law, with its specialized terms, mainly drawn from Greene's pamphlets: Banker, Gripe, Vincent and Termage. From the same source is drawn the description of the main techniques of the other 'laws', together with their canting terminology: the Black Art (Charme, Stand, Wresters, Farsing, Pelferie), the Curbing Law (Curber, Warpe, Curbe, Snappings, Tricker), the Prigging Law (Prigger, Prancer, Martar, Alhallowes, Rifler, Querries, Trayler), the Lifting Law (Lift, Marker, Santar, Garbage), the High Law (High Lawyer, Scripper, Oke, Martin, Stooping), the Sacking Law (Panderesse, Apple-squire, Commoditie, Trugging place, Traffique, Simpler, Crosbiter), the Figging Law (Nip, Snap, Cloyer, Cuttle-bung, Foist, Stale, Drawing, Smoking, Boyling, Bung, Shels, Striking). Of these terms, only Boyling - given as a synonym of Smoking in the Figging Law - is listed by Dekker for the first time. To these traditional 'laws' Thomas Dekker adds a new one, called the ftue Iumpes at Leape-frog, consisting of five minor tricks practised by the underworld, which have in common the fact that "in these Jumpes the running Cheaters sweate onely to make a man stoope so lowe, that they may breake his back, and then they ride ouer his miserie with laughter" (1608: H3v). The five 'jumps' are as follows: Horse-coursing (getting a stableman to pay the hostelry bill of the person who has hired out his horse), Carrying of stones (leaving an alehouse furtively without paying for the food and drink consumed there), Fawning (leaving a stranger to pay for a cup that one has stolen from a tavern), Foole-taking (a name for several tricks, one of which consists in "setting a couple of subtle rogues to sing ballads on a stall, till a number of people presse about them to buy their trash, and then their purses being discouered, are quickly in the Nips fingers") and Spoone-meat (getting someone to buy a spoone claiming it is silver, while it is of a baser metal). In the wake of the success of his first pamphlet, Dekker wrote Lanthorne and Candlelight, providing new descriptions of roguish activities and adding details to stories borrowed from previous literature on the underworld. The first chapter of the book is devoted to the canting language, and deals with "How long it hath beene a language; how it comes to bee a language; how it is deriued, and by whom it is spoken" (1608: Ar)9. Much of the text is taken from Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities - especially the part concerning the division of languages at the time of the Tower of Babel - or from Harman's Caveat - particularly as regards information on the origin of canting. Dekker, however, adds a few interpretations of this language, pointing out, in particular, the Latinate etymology of certain of its terms: As for example, they call a Cloake (in the Canting tongue) a Togeman, and in Latine, Toga signifies a gowne or an upper garment. Pannam is bread; and Partis in Latin is likewise

9

The text quoted here is the original edition held by the British Library in London.

29 bread. Cassan is Cheese, and is a word barbarously coynde out of the substantiue Caseus which also signifies Cheese. And so of others. (1608: B3v) Another linguistic feature pointed out by Dekker is the frequent recourse to the process of compounding in order to form new canting terms: Then by ioyning of two simples, doe they make almost all their compoundes. As for example: Nab (in the Canting tongue) is a head; and Nab-cheate, is a hat or a cap. Which word Cheate, being coupled to other words, stands in very good stead, and does excellent seruice; for a Smelling Chete, signifies a Nose: a Prat-ling Chete, is a tongue. Crashing chetes, are Teeth: Hearing chetes, are Eares: Fambles, are Hands, and thereupon a Ring is called Fambling chete. A Muffling chete, signifies a Napkin. A Belly chete, an Apron: A Grunting chete, a Pig: A Cackling chete, a Cock, or a Capon: A Quacking chete, a Calfe, or a Sheepe: and so may that word be maried to many others besides. (1608: B3v) In his search for conformity, Dekker explains some expressions consisting of nouns and adjectives which are frequent in the canting language, such as cove/cofe/cuffin for 'man' and quier for Tjad': The word Coue, or Cofe or Cuffin, signifies a Man, a Fellow, &c. But differs something in his property, according as it meetes with other wordes: For, a Gentleman is called a Gentry Coue, or Cofe: a good fellow, is a Bene Cofe·. a Churle is called, a Quier cuffin, Quier signifies naught, and Cuffin (as I sayd before) a Man, and in Canting they terme a Iustice of Peace, (because he punisheth them belike) by no other name then by Quier Cuffin, thats to say a Churle, or a Naughty man. And so, Ken signifying a House, they call a Prison, a Quier ken, thats to say, an ill house. (1608: B4r) The chapter also reports several terms already introduced in The Belman of London, such as the names of the various roguish ranks, together with a few canting songs and rhymes accompanied by their translation into English (mostly taken from Copland's Highway to the Spital-House). The chapter ends with a short dictionary, which reproduces in alphabetical order most of the common canting terms already presented in Harman's Caueat.

2.T.Martin

Mark-All

Martin Mark-All, Beadle of Bridlewell was written in 161010 by a mysterious "S.R.". Some attribute it to Samuel Rowlands (15707-1630?), whose work usually appeared with initials only, although Judges claims that "no special grounds exist for this attribution beyond the fact that there is some certainty that Rowlands wrote another rogue book, Greene's Ghost Haunting Cony-catchers (1602), by S.R.; and we know that he specialised in low London life" (1965: 514). Judges, instead, agrees with Aydelotte (1913) in attributing the

10

Judges suggests that "there is some probability that the book appeared in an earlier form in 1608 between the publication of The Bellman and Lantern and Candlelight. No copy of such an impression has survived." (1965: 515)

30

authorship of this work to Samuel Rid, as in 1612 the latter published a small vagabond book, The Art of Juggling, which not only fulfils part of the promise made by the Beadle at the end of Martin Mark-All, but actually continues the discussion of gipsy life, and in particular of Giles Hather and Kit Callot, the gipsy king and queen. The book taken into consideration here reports a sort of trial carried out by the members of the underworld against the Bellman of London, whose crime - according to them - consists in having made public the most common expressions of their secret jargon. The rogues' chief decides to ask the intervention of Don Purloyningo, chief Governor of the Region of Thevingen, a land inhabited by thieves and rogues; both the land and its inhabitants are described in enthusiastic terms. The book then deals with the canting language, correcting some of the expressions contained in Dekker's pamphlets - in particular those which have become outdated - and adding a few not mentioned by him: I have thought good not only to shew his errour in some places in setting downe olde wordes, used fortie yeeres agoe before he was borne, for wordes that are used in these dayes [...] But haue enlarged his Dictionary (or Master Haimans) with such wordes as I thinke hee neuer heard of (and yet in use too) but not out of vaine glorie, as his ambition is, but indeede as an experienced souldier that hath deerely paid for it. (1610: Ev)"

As can be seen from this quotation, a clear accusation is made against the author of The Belman of London of having plagiarized Thomas Harman's canting glossary. The words which, according to S.R., had not been inserted in Dekker's two pamphlets on the underworld are the following: -Abram·, madde; - He maunds Abram: he begs as a madde man; - Budge a beake: runne away; -A bite: secreta mulierum; - Crackmans: the hedge; - To castell. to see or looke; -A Roome Cuttle: a sword; -A Cuttle bung: a knife to cut a purse; - Chepemans: Cheapeside Market; - Crancke: the falling sicknesse; and thereupon your Rogues that counterfeit the falling sickenes are called counterfeit Cranks·, -A Flicke: a Theefe; - Famblers: a paire of Gloues; - To Filch·, to beat; -A Filchman·. a cudgell or staffe; - To Fence property: to sell any thing that is stolen; - To Foysf. to picke a pocket; -A Feager of Loges: one that beggeth with counterfeit writings; - Greenemans: the fields; - Gilkes for the gigger: false keyes for the doore or picklockes; - Gracemans·. Gratious streete market; - Iockam : a mans yard; 11

Quotations are taken from the copy held at the British Library in London.

31 - Ian: a purse; -1ere: a Turd; - Lugges: eares; - Loges: a passe or warrant; -A Feager of loges·, one that beggeth with false passes; - What maund doe you breake : what kind of begging use you?; - Ile myll your maund: lie spoyle your begging; - To nip a Ian: to cut a purse; - Nab: a head; - Nab cheate: an hat; - Numans: Newgate market; - Your prat whids Romely: you fart lustily; - Peckage: meat; or scroofe, scraps; - To Plant: to hide; - Stow your whids and plant·, - The Coue of the ken can kanf, - Padder: an high-way robber or purse taker; - Quire: this word is alwayes in il sense for naught; - Quire ken : a prison house; - Quire bowse: bad drinke; - What a quire whidding keepeyou: What a scolding keep you!; - Roome bowsin ken: a Tauerne; - Scrappes, fatte and glorious bittes: sound blowes and hangings; - The muggill -will tip you fat scraps and glorious bits: the Beadle will well bombast you; - A Stander : he that stands sentinel upon the Pad or highway to robbe; - Spreader: butter; - Treyning: hanging; - Treyning cheate: the gallous; - To tip: to giue; - Tip a make ben Roome Coue: give a halfpeny good Gentleman; - To whid: to speake; -A Winne: a penny; - Whittington: Newgate. As can be seen by comparing this list with those provided in this chapter, only some of the expressions quoted by S.R. had appeared in previous canting literature, while a relevant number consists of terms published here for the first time. The following, instead, are the terms given in a form or with a definition which the author specifically says is different from that found in Dekker's pamphlets: - Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse. - Cut me ben whids: tell me truth. - To Cut quire whids: to lie. - Chates: the Gallowes: here he mistakes both the simple word, because he so found it printed, not knowing the true originali thereof, and also in the compound; as for Chates it should be Cheatés, which word is used generally for things, as, Tip me that Cheate, Giue me that thing; so that if you will make a word for the Gallous, you must put thereto

32 this word Treyning, which signifies hanging; and so Treyning Cheate is as much to say, hanging things, or the Gallous, and not Chates. - Cowch a Hogshead', to lie downe and sleepe: this phrase is like an Alminacke that is out of date: now the dutch word to slope is with them used, to sleepe, and liggen to lie downe. - Nigling·. company keeping with a woman: this word is not used now, but wapping, and thereof comes the name wapping morts, Whoores. - Pecke: meate, pecke is not meate, but peckage, pecke is taken to eate or byte: as the Buffa peckes me by the stampes, the dogge bites me by the shinnes. - Ruffmans: not the hedge or bushes as heretofore: but now the eavesing of houses or roofes: Cragmans is now used for the hedge. - Salomon: the masse: Now, when many doe presse the poore rogues so earnestly to sweare by the Salomon, doe not blame them though they refuse it; for although you know not what it meanes, yet they very well know: Many men I haue heard take this word Salomon to be the chiefe commander among the beggers; but to put them out of doubt, this is not he: marry there was one Solomon in K. Henry the eights time that was a iolly fellow among them, who kept his Court most an end at Foxe Hall at the upper end of Lambeth (if it be true as their records make mention) who was Successour to Cocke Lorrell: of him and his successors much is to bee spoken if licence may be graunted, and of whose Runnagate race I could frame a whole treatise: but here enough. - Smellar. a garden, not Smelling cheate, for thats a nosegay. In the definition of the terms quoted here S.R. mentions very interesting details about not only the real meanings of these canting expressions, but also their range of use and their evolution in the short period covered by this chapter. Later in his work the author also provides interesting comments about the origin of canting, mainly identifying it in the following three sources: a dead language such as Latin, the native tongue (i.e. English) and a foreign component, here identified mainly in the Dutch 12 , French and Spanish languages: And this their language they spunne out of three other tongues, viz. Latine, English, and Dutch: these three especially, notwithstanding some few words they borrowed of the Spanish and French. (1610: G4v) The analysis of the main works on the underground of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century has thus pointed out not only the existence of very successful and popular descriptions of the lives and criminal activities of these roguish people, but also of many works dealing with their secret language in a very detailed way and with great insight. Indeed, the authors' comments on the canting language often take into consideration various metalinguistic aspects, such as the origin of this jargon, its main processes of word-formation and even the range of usage and the semantic evolution of its elements.

12

It must be pointed out that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the adjective Dutch was only starting to be used to denote the people of Holland, while its most common meaning was that of'Teutonic', referring to all things German.

Chapter 3

The New Canting Terms Reported by Richard Head

The object of this chapter is the analysis of the new canting terms included in Richard Head's The English Rogue (1665) and The Canting Academy (1673), two publications dealing with the main types of rogues then characterizing the English underworld, their criminal habits and their secret language. The interest in this topic was not new, as we have seen, and several books and dictionaries dealing with the language and the habits of the underworld had appeared for over a century. However, the Civil War and the subsequent Puritan rule had caused a halt in the production of such publications, and only after the end of the Commonwealth had an interest in rogues and their habits arisen again, testified to by the appearance of many pamphlets and books dealing with the description of the tricks of the various types of underworld criminals and of the different kinds of punishment reserved to them1. In this revival of the interest in the roguish sector of English society Richard Head played an important role through two important works: The English Rogue and The Canting Academy. In these publications, Head not only provided a thorough description of the habits of this social class, but also reported the most popular words used in communication taking place in that context. His justification for this linguistic side of his work was that at his time there was "little [...] extant in Print of [this] way of speaking, commonly known by the name of Canting. [...] and yet you know how much it is in use among some persons, I mean, the more debauched and looser sort of people" (1673: To the Reader2). It is particularly in the later of the two books that we find a more accurate treatment of the linguistic aspects of the canting world, testified to not only by the inclusion of a specific dictionary, but also of several remarks and comments on the features of this jargon. A first remark concerns the identification of the main users of this language, who are thus outlined:

1

2

The influence of this new interest in the underworld on the development of a specific sector of the English literature ofthat time is well pointed out by Rawlings: During the late seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century crime provided one of the principal subjects for popular literature. All aspects were covered: the crime itself, the investigation, the trial, the punishment and the life of the offender. The works ranged from newspaper articles through broadsheets and pamphlets to large books, sometimes in several volumes. (Rawlings 1992:1) The quotations reported here are taken from the copy of Richard Head's The Canting Academy available on microfiche at the British Library in London (reproduced from the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library).

34 There is no profest Rogue whatever, (if he be qualified for his thieving faculty) but must be well vers'd in Canting: and to the intent that they may not fall short of being excellent proficients in all manner of Roguery, they lay the ground work thereof in Canting, for by this they are able to converse with, and understand those of the upper Form of Villany, and by constant frequenting their company, become acquainted with Canting words which are most new, and what are thrown aside as too commonly known, the use whereof if not timely left off, may be the Instruments which may unhappily betray them to their condign punishments. (1673: 2)

Once he has specified the users of this language, Head points out its main characteristics; the first of these is identified in its secret nature, the reason for which is thus explained by Head: I shall endeavour to give you an exact account of these Caterpillars, with their hidden and mysterious way of speaking, which they make use of to blind the eyes of those they have cheated or robb'd, and inform one another with what they have done, or designe to do. (1673: 2)

The secret nature of this language is clearly perceived by its users and is strengthened by the oath that each new member of the underworld is made to take during the ceremony in which he is officially admitted into that society; the wording of this oath is thus reported by Head: I will not teach any one to Cant, nor will I disclose ought of our mysteries to them, although they flaug me to the death. (1673: 4)

Another aspect of this roguish cant pointed out by Head is its high degree of changeability, the reason being thus explained in The Canting Academy. From these [the Rogues] I understood, that the Mode of Canting alterti very often, and that they were forced to change frequently those material words which chiefly discovered their mysterious practices and Villanies, least growing too common their own words should betray them. (1673: 56-7)

In order to emphasize the linguistic aspect of his work, Richard Head groups the terms most commonly used by the members of the underworld in a specific dictionary, divided into two sections: "Canting before the English" and "English before the Canting". The importance of Head's contribution is highlighted by the fact that in these sections he does not only report the canting terms listed in previous publications, but he also adds many new ones, so as to make his dictionary "more compleat than any hath been publisht hitherto" (1673: To the Reader). As several of the terms included in his dictionary will be totally unknown to his readers, Head is aware of the need to emphasize the reliability of his data and thus reassures his readers: I can assure you (the helps being so inconsiderable) the pains I took in the Collection of new Words is unimaginable. (1673: To the Reader)

Moreover, in order to strengthen the reliability of his new terms, Head clearly states that all of them "have passed the approbation of the Critical Canter" (1673: 57). Indeed, in his collection of material for his new books, Head has not been at all reluctant to contact even rogues and other speakers of cant, and to include them - together with previous canting publications - among his sources for new data, as he himself clearly states in his work:

35

I have consulted likewise what is printed on this subject, and have slighted no help I could gather from thence, which indeed is very little; the greatest assistance I had in this discovery, was from Newgate; which with much difficulty I screw*d out of the sullen Rogues, who would not speak a word till I had suppled their tongues with the oil of Barley, or rather thaw'd their obstinate silence with the heat of strong Liquors." (1673: 56) This great care in collecting data and the differentiation in his use of sources make Head's contribution to the analysis of the canting language very interesting, especially because little3 or inadequate4 attention had so far been paid to it. In spite of the fact that many of the new terms reported by Head had already appeared in The English Rogue, our analysis will be based on the expressions listed in the dictionary of The Canting Academy, which includes and further expands the lexemes presented in the former publication5.

3.1. The new canting terms in Head's dictionary

The terms appearing in the "Canting before the English" section of the dictionary included in The Canting Academy amount to 266, which is a relatively high number if compared to the total of five hundred expressions included in all the different books on cant published between 1535 and 1612. Among the cant expressions that Head provides, 153 are new or have a meaning which is different from the one reported in previous publications6. This high figure demonstrates that Head's contribution is extremely relevant, at least in quantitative terms. Of these new expressions the great majority consists of nouns (125 out of 153); the rest is made up of verbs (15), adjectives (10), idiomatic phrases (2) and adverbs (1). All the new terms correspond to content words, while grammar terms remain the same as those of the general language7.

Gertrude E. Noyes thus underlines the scantiness of research on Head's new terms:

4

5

6

7

I have not been able to locate any copy or even any description of the second edition of The Canting Academy, 1674. The first edition is also rare and has received no adequate analysis. (Noyes 1941/1991: 286, η. 20) In his comment, Partridge greatly undervalues the importance of Head's contribution: His [Head's] glossary contains little not already present in Harman, Greene, Dekker, and Rowlands. (Partridge 1970: 53) It must be noted, however, that the following terms appear in The English Rogue but not in The Canting Academy: Hearts Ease (Ά twenty shilling piece'), Joseph (Ά cloak'), Kate (Ά picklock'), Lullaby-cheat (Ά child'). The terms of The Canting Academy which are either new or have a new meaning are listed in Appendix 1. This aspect is a typical linguistic feature of both cant and slang, as several studies on the subject have pointed out; cf. Halliday: The principle is that of same grammar, different vocabulary; but different vocabulary only in certain areas, typically those that are central to the activities of the subculture and that set it off most sharply from the established society. (Halliday 1978: 165)

36 As regards the semantic fields to which Head's new canting terms belong, they correspond to the lexical areas which are typical of the various specialized activities of the underworld and of the reality in which their practitioners live. The highest number consists of expressions used to indicate people, and in particular the members of this social class: Adam Tiler = Your running Comrade, Blower = One mans particular Wench, Clincker = A Crafty Fellow, Damber = Rascal, Dommerar - A Mad Man, Glym Jack = A Link Boy, Gropers = Blind men, Kinchin Cove = A little man, Moon Curser = A Link boy, Mumpers = Gentile Beggars, Prig-star = A Rival in love, Queer Cove = A Rogue, Queer Mort = A pockie Baggage, Ratling Mumpers = Such who only beg at coaches, Rum glimmar = King of the Link boys, Scout = A watch, Stall whimper = A Bastard. Other terms refer to their aspect, character or condition (Dimber = Pretty, Glimflashy = Angry, Peeping = Drowsie, sleepy, Peery = Fearful) or to the different representatives of the more general society with whom rogues are in contact (Bluffer = An Host, Cui = Man, Cully = A Fool or Fop, Deuseavile-Stampers = Country Carriers, Mow heater = A Drover, Nizie = A Fool or Coxcomb, Ratling Cove = A Coachman, Ridgcully = A Goldsmith, Rum Cully = A rich Coxcomb, Smacking Cove = Coachman, Witcher-Cully = A Silver-smith). Many expressions have been coined to denote parts of the body or diseases (Canakin = The Plague, Colquarron = A Mans Neck, Cracker = An Arse, Cank = Dumb, Gigg = The Nose, Grinders = Teeth, Heaver = A Breast, Muns = The Face, Nub = The Neck, Ogles = Eyes, Panter = An heart, Prating cheat = A Tongue, Quarron = A Body, Smiter = An Arm). Other lexemes instead refer to clothes and personal objects (Calle = A Cloak, Duds = Goods, Famble-cheats = Rings or Gloves, Lifter, or Plyer = A crutch, Lurries = All manner of cloaths, Mish = A Shirt, Mish topper = A coate, Peak = Any lace, Peeper = A Looking glass, Peeter = A portmantle, Roger = A Cloak-bag, Stock-drawers = Stockings, Witcher-tilter = A Silver-hilted sword). Several terms are used to speak of dwelling places, furniture or other objects of the house (Croppinken = A Privy or Boghouse, Dancers = Stairs, Glimfenders = Andirons, Glym Stick = A Candlestick, Jockum gage = A Chamber pot, Libben = A private dwelling house, Wicket = A Casement, Witcher bubber = A Silver Bowl), while others have been created to denote animals or items linked to them (Batner = An Oxe, Cobble-colter = A Turky, Mower = A Cow, Nabgirder = A Bridle). A number of expressions refer to crime and fraud, particularly in the areas of theft and cheating: Betty = An Instrument to open a door, Bite = to cheat or cozen, Bite the Roger = Steal the Portmanteau, Budge = One that steals Cloaks or ought else, slipping into an house in the dark, Bulk and File = The one jostles you up whilst the other picks your pocket, Coker = A lye, Earnest = A part or share, Fencing Cully = A Receiver of Stoln Goods, Gilt = A Picklock, Glazyer = One that creeps in at casements, or unrips glass windows to filch and steal, Kidnapper = A fellow that walketh the streets, and takes all advantages to pick up the younger sort of people, whom with lies and many fair promises he inticeth on board a ship and transports them into forreign plantations, Milken = An house breaker, Nap = To take, or cheat with the Dice, that is, by certainly securing one chance, Napper of Naps = A Sheep-stealer, Prig-napper = A Horse-stealer, Rum Padders = The better sort of High-way men, Shoplift = One that filcheth Commodities out of a Shop, under the pretence of cheapning or buying them of the Shop-keeper, Shoulder Sham = Partner to a File, Snudge = One that lies underneath a bed, to watch an opportunity to rob the house. Strictly connected with these are the terms that refer to trial, punishment or imprisonment: Chaft = Beaten or bang'd, Cuffin-Quire = A Justice of Peace, Fib = To

37

beat, Flog = To whip as in Bridewell, Flogging Cove = The whipper of Bridewell, or any other that whips people commonly called at Dublin in Ireland Bellores, Marinated = Transported into some forreign Plantation, Naskin = A Gaol or Bridewell, Nubbing = Hanging, Nubbing cheat = The Gallows, Nubbing Cove = The Hangman, Nubbing Ken = The Sessions house, Romboyl'd = Sought after with a warrant, Topping cheat = The Gallows, Topping Cove = The Hangman, Trine = To hang: or Tyburn, Whit = Newgate. Many terms refer instead to eating and drinking, such as Bounsing-cheat = A Bottle, Cackling Farts = Eggs, Chap'd = Dry or Thirtsy, Flicker = A Glass, Grunting peck = Porke, Nazie = Drunken, Nazie Cove = Drunkard, Neck stamper = A Pot-boy, Rum boozing Welts = A bunch of Grapes, Rum dropper = A Vintner, Rum gutlers = Canary wine, Rum hopper = A Drawer, Squeeker, A Bar-boy, Touting Ken = A Tavern Bar, Trundlers = Pease. Several terms refer to actions commonly carried out by members of the underworld {Blot the Skrip and J ark it = To be engaged or bound for any body, Brush = To fly, Couch = To lie, Dup = To enter or go into an house, Fam-grasp = To agree with, Flick = To Cut, Pike = To run, Snilch = To Eye, Stam flesh = To Cant, Track = To Go) or to different aspects of their reality (Beenship = Worship, Beenshiply = Very well, Flicker-snapt = A Glass broken, Fogus = Tobacco, Frummagem = Choak'd, Hoodwinkt = Beneghted or belated, Jague = A ditch, Pad = The high-way, Skrip = Paper, Swag = Shop, Tick-rum = A Licence, Tumbler = A Cart, Witcher = Silver). Various expressions are instead linked to the semantic area of money and spending (Deuswins = Two pence, Fence = To spend, Hog = A Shilling, Husky lour = A Guinny, Job = A Guinny, Old Mr Gory = A Piece of Gold, Tres wins = Three pence), while only one word refers to the field of sex (Blow off= O. Q. P. [i.e., to lie with a woman]).

3.2. The origin of Head's new terms

The canting terms first reported by Head follow several different processes of wordformation; in many cases more than one process are at work in the creation of a new expression8. In thirty-eight cases canting terms are coined anew, either by means of onomatopoeia (1 term), borrowing (10), clipping (10) or graphic alteration (17). Thirtytwo instead are the result of semantic changes, such as metonymy (11), synecdoche (1), metaphor (8), personification (2), specialization (4), generalization (2) or semantic shift (4). The largest group of neologisms, however, derives from the process of compounding, with a total of 43 terms; of these, three are also involved in a process of ellipsis. Also very high is the number of derived forms, which includes 37 terms, thirty-three of which obtained by means of suffixation, while four through conversion. The origin of three terms (Frummagem = Choak'd, Gigg = The Nose, Snilch = To Eye) remains obscure.

Although in several cases more than one word-formation process may be at work simultaneously, in the analysis that follows only the one that seems to dominate over the others is privileged and indicated as the main cause for the creation of the new expression.

38

We shall now analyze the various cases of Head's neological formations in detail.

3.2.1. Onomatopoeia The only case of onomatopoeia is Flog, which imitates the sound involved in its action (i.e., to whip).

3.2.2. Loans The cases of borrowing found in The Canting Academy are the following: - Adam Tiler, the second term of this expression comes from German Theiler or Teiler meaning 'one who partakes or shares'; the first term instead is a case of antonomasia, with the use of the proper noun 'Adam' to express the general idea of 'partner' (commonly found in the binomial expression 'Adam and Eve'). - According to Barrière and Leland's dictionary of slang (quoted in Partridge 1961: 100), Calle (Ά Cloak') may be derived from Yiddish Kalle ('a girl') with a semantic transfer similar to the one that has created the use of skirt with the meaning of 'girl, woman'. - Colquarron : the first part of this term (col) comes from French and has the meaning of the cant expression ('Neck'). The second part (quarron) is an existing cant word meaning "body'. - According to Partridge (1961: 186-7) the canting adjective Dimber ('Pretty') may be "either a corruption or a perversion of Romany rinkeno, 'pretty'". - Fib ('To Beat') instead has been derived by Hoare from the Italian affibbiare in the sense of "to give a ... spiteful blow" (quoted in Partridge 1961: 237). - The term Lurries ('All manner of cloaths', but also 'Mony, Watch, Ring, or any other moveable' (Head 1673: 11)) may come from Romany loor ('to plunder') or looripen ('plunder, booty'). - Marinated ('Transported into some forreign Plantation') is a derived form from the Latin noun mare ('sea') through its English adjective marine ("belonging to the sea, connected to the sea'). - Grose (1785) derives the word Muns ('The Face') from the German word mund, meaning 'mouth'. - Nap ('To take, to cheat') instead may have been taken from a Scandinavian form nappa (or Danish nappe), meaning 'to snatch or snap'. - The first word of the term tres wins ('Three pence') is a Latin loan, while the second is the existing canting noun for 'pence'.

3.2.3. Clipping The ten terms which result from the graphic reduction of pre-existing words are the following:

39 - Bite is the reduced form of the cant verb cross-bite having the same meaning ('to cheat or cozen'). - According to Partridge (1961: 102), the canting term Cank ('Dumb') could be a shortened form of the standard adjective cankered. - Couch ('To lie') is derived from the existing cant idiom Couch a hogshead ('To go to sleep'), also reported by Richard Head in his dictionary. - Cui ('Man') is the shortened form of Cully (Ά fellow or chap'). - Damber ('Rascal') is the abbreviated form of Dimber Damber, an existing canting term used in general for any principal rogue. - Mish (Ά Shirt1) is the reduced form of the synonymous term Commission, with the English graphic rendering of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative sound. - Pad ('The high-way') is the reduced form of high pad, which has the same meaning. - Scout (Ά Watch') is the abbreviation of the form scout-watch. - The first word of the term Tick-rum (Ά License') is the abbreviation of the noun ticket, while the second corresponds to the canting adjective rum ('excellent'). - Whit ('Newgate') is the clipped form of Whittington, the name of the Lord Mayor of London, responsible for the building of the prison of Newgate in 1423.

3.2.4. Graphic alteration In several cases new cant expressions are mere graphic modifications of existing ones, with no change of meaning. Here are the examples of this word-formation process which have been found in The Canting Academy: - Canakin ('The Plague') is an alternative spelling for the synonymous form Canniken or Cannikin. - Clincker (Ά Crafty Fellow') may be a modification of clincher, the shipbuilding term indicating the workman that clinches the bolts. - The first word in the compound Cobble-colter (Ά Turky') is the graphic variation of the word gobble, the noise made by a turkey. - According to Partridge (1961: 137), Coker (Ά lie') may be a variant oí caulker. - The first part of the compound Croppinken (Ά Privy or Boghouse') is the modification of the gerund form of the verb crap, meaning 'defecate', while the second word corresponds to the existing cant word ken indicating a house, a booth or a room. - Cuffin-Quire is a variant form of the existing canting expression Queer Cuffin having the same meaning (Ά Justice of Peace'). - Flick ('To Cut') is a variant of the dialectal verb flitch having the same meaning9. - According to Grose (1785), J ague (Ά ditch') may be a graphic alteration of Jakes (Ά house of office, a cacatorium'). - Libben (Ά private dwelling house') is a variant of libken, an existing canting term for a house.

9

Partridge's (1961 and 1984) explanation of an echoic origin ("ex the flicking of a whip") is due to his exclusion of the similarity of this term with the verb to flitch, as this seems to be unrecorded before the 19th century, ignoring however its presence in dialectal varieties.

40 - Mower (Ά Cow') is a graphic variation of mooer. - Nazie ('Drunken') is a spelling variant of the synonymous adjective nase pronounced as a disyllable. - Nizie (Ά Fool or Coxcomb') may be considered an alteration of the adjective nice ('foolish') pronounced as a disyllable10. - Nub ('The Neck') is probably a variant of knub ('protuberance')11. - Prating cheat (Ά Tongue') is the variant of the synonymous existing cant term prattling cheat. - Quarron (Ά Body') is a graphic modification of quarrom, having the same meaning. - Skrip ('Paper') is an alteration of its synonym scrap. - According to Partridge (1984), Witcher ('Silver') is a corruption of silver influenced by white.

3.2.5. Metonymy The cases of metonymyc derivation found in Head's dictionary are the following: - The first term in the expression Bulk and File ('The one jostles you whilst the other picks your pocket') may be considered a case of metonymy, as it derives from the paraphrase 'one who sleeps on a bulk'12. - In Gilt (Ά Picklock') the term commonly used for the tool is transferred to its user. This interpretation is suggested by the comment added by Head himself to his definition of the term: "A Picklock, where note that some of them are so excellent at it, that they are furnished with all sorts of gilts or keys, from a Church door to the smallest Cabinet, and almost at first sight will dexterously open any door, trunk, chest, or any lock whatever". - The canting meaning of Hog (Ά Shilling') may be due to the figure of a hog on the coin. -Job (Ά Guinny') is the shortened form of jobbernoll meaning 'a stupid person, a simpleton', with the metonymyc transfer of the word for the head on a coin to the coin itself. - Milken ('An house breaker') derives from Mill a Ken ('Rob a house'), with the semantic transfer of the term from the action to the doer. - According to Partridge (1984), Peeter (Ά Portmantle') may come from the proper noun Peter, "perhaps because frequently 'netted' by thieves: in allusion to Simon Peter's occupation". - Roger (Ά Cloak-bag') comes from the existing cant noun referring to a begging vagabond. - In Shoulder sham ('Partner to a File') the term referring to the trick (sham) - in which a pickpocket's partner presses against the prospective victim's shoulder and jostles him - is used for the person who does it.

10

11 12

In his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), instead, Samuel Johnson suggests its derivation from the French adjective niais ('foolish'). Partridge (1961), instead, derives it from nob ("head'). Partridge (1984) suggests a possible derivation of file from the French term filou, meaning 'a pickpocket'.

41 - Snudge (One that lies underneath a bed, to watch an opportunity to rob the house') is derived from the homographie verb indicating the action of remaining snug and quiet. - Swag ('Shop') may also be considered a metonymy, with the adoption of the noun used in certain British dialects to indicate a quantity of goods to refer to the place where they are sold. - Besides with its original meaning of 'to hang', Head reports Trine with the meaning of 'Tyburn', which was the place where executions took place.

3.2.6. Synecdoche Among the new terms reported in Head's dictionary there is only one case of synecdoche, concerning the lexeme Wicket (Ά Casement'), in which the word denoting the whole (i.e., a door, a window) is used for its pari.

3.2.7. Metaphor New expressions may also have been obtained by means of metaphoric and figurative usage of existing words. Among the new terms listed in The Canting Academy there are eight such cases: - Blot the skrip and jark it ('To be engaged or bound for any body') makes use of the verb to blot ('to stain [the paper] with ink') to indicate the writing of an agreement; the second verb, instead, was already in use in the canting world with the semantic value of 'to seal'. - The verb Brush used with the meaning of 'to fly' is derived from the habit of brushing away one's traces or tracks to cover one's flight. - As the first word in the compound Fam-grasp ('Agree with') corresponds to the cant word for 'hand', the whole expression signifies the shaking of hands, and thus figuratively - the conclusion of an agreement. - The cant meaning of Flicker (Ά Glass') probably originates from the flickering lights coming from a glass as one drinks from it. - The sense 'angry' of Glimflashy is based on the figurative use of its two components: glim (cant word meaning 'fire') and flashy (standard English for 'bright'). - Hoodwinkt derives its meaning 'Benighted or belated' from the semantic value that this adjective had in standard English, i.e., that of "blindfolded, blinded', which may relate to the darkness of night. - In Husky lour (Ά Guinny') the second word is a specialization of the cant noun lour denoting money, while the first word indicates the yellow colour typical of a husk. - The first word of the term Stock-Drawers ('Stockings') is used figuratively to refer to legs, while the second expresses the idea that you draw them on and off.

42 3.2.8. Personification The two cases of personification found among Head's new terms are Betty ('An Instrument to open a door', from a very popular female first name) and Old Mr Gory ( Ά piece of Gold'); Grose (1785) derives the noun in the latter expression from the island of Goree and explains its new meaning with "the traffick carried on at that place, which is chiefly for gold dust" 13 .

3.2.9. Specialization The four cases of specialization found in The Canting Academy are the following: - Head's new meaning of Blow off ('O.Q.P. [i.e., to lie with a woman]') may be a specialization of the meaning 'to expel, to emit, to spout' typical of the standard phrasal verb. - Cully ( Ά Fool or Fop') is the semantic reformulation of the existing more general cant term denoting Ά fellow or chap'. - The canting meaning of Earnest ( Ά part or share') is a specialization of the standard semantic value of 'sum of money paid as an instalment'. - Pike ('To run') is a specialization of the meaning 'to depart' of the standard verb.

3.2.10. Generalization In The Canting Academy there are also examples of the opposite phenomenon, i.e. that of generalization. Here are the two cases found in the dictionary: - Duds presents a shift from the existing meaning of 'clothes' to that of the more general semantic value of 'goods'. - Another case of generalization may be considered Peak ('Any lace'), from the standard English homograph meaning 'a lace ruff.

3.2.11. Semantic shift The cases of semantic shift found in Head's text are the following: - Bite the Roger: in this expression the veib Bite - commonly having the meaning of 'to cheat' - acquires that of 'to steal'14.

13

14

Partridge (1984) instead suggests its derivation from gory ("bright colour") or from the Romany term gorishi ("shilling") or the Turkish word ghrush. According to Partridge (1961: 42), in this semantic shift there is an intermediate stage, in which the verb bite acquires the meaning of to rob', thus retaining a personal object as in the expression Bite the Biter = to Rob the Rogue.

43 - Dommerar. instead of the existing meaning 'dumb man', Head reports that of Ά Mad man'. - In Dup there is a semantic shift from the existing meaning of 'To Open (a door)' to that of 'To enter or go into an house'. - In Fence the existing semantic value of 'to sell or purchase stolen goods' is changed to that of 'to spend'.

3.2.12. Compounding The word-formation process most commonly adopted in the coining of the new terms reported by Head is that of compounding; indeed, there are forty-two instances of this process, which covers over one fourth of all neologisms. Here are the various cases found in The Canting Academy. - In the compound Cackling Farts ('Eggs') we notice the combination of cackling cheat (cant word denoting a chicken) and the dysphemic term15 farts, with the elision of the middle term cheat. - Deuseavile-Stampers ('Country Carriers') combines two existing canting terms Deuseavile and Stampers. While the former is used in its usual sense, the latter is given a new meaning, different from the traditional one of 'shoes'. Partridge (1961: 681) thus explains this semantic change: "As shoes 'carry' a person, so a carrier (or porter) carries things". - Deuswins ('Two pence') is the combination of the existing term deuce used in dicing for the numeral 'two' and the traditional canting word wins meaning 'pence'. - Famble-Cheats ('Rings or Gloves') combines two existing canting terms: Fambles ('Hands') and Cheats ('Things'). - Fencing Cully ( Ά Receiver of Stoln Goods') is the combination of the present participle of the existing verb to fence ('to sell or purchase stolen goods') used in adjectival position and the noun Cully ( Ά fellow or chap'). - Flicker-snapt ( Ά glass broken') derives from the positioning of the past participle snapt (derived from the standard English verb to snap) after the canting term Flicker ('Glass'). - Floggin Cove ('The whipper of Bridewell') is the combination of the present participle of the canting verb to flog ('To whip') and the canting noun Cove ('Man'). - Glimfenders ('Andirons') is the combination of the cant noun glim ('fire') and the standard word fender, adopted to designate a thing used to keep something off. - Glym Jack ( Ά Link boy') is based on the two lexical items glym (meaning 'lantern, candle') and jack (meaning 'fellow'). - Glym stick ( Ά Candlestick') is the combination of the cant word glym ('candle') and the standard English word stick.

15

A dysphemic term is a gross metaphor conveying an unpleasant allusion. Its use in the canting language, however, is not meant to criticize but to ridicule; as Partridge (1970: 14-15) rightly remarks: "usually its attitude is rather mocking than indignant, for its primary aim is to ridicule everything in amusing and unexpected figures of speech."

44 - In the compound Grunting peck ('Porke') we can notice the combination of grunting cheat (the cant expression for 'pork') and peck (the cant word for 'food') with the clipping of the middle word cheat. - Jockum gage (Ά Chamber pot') is the combination of two cant words: jockum ('penis') and gage ('pot'). - Kidnapper is the combination of the existing noun kid ('child') and the agentive noun derived from the canting verb nap ('to steal'). - Kinchin Cove (Ά little man') consists of the juxtaposition of Kinchin (meaning 'Little') and Cove ('Man'). - Mish topper (Ά Coate') indicates a garment that covers a mish (cant word for a shirt). - Mow heater (Ά Drover') is the combination of the standard noun heater (used in a figurative sense) and the standard noun mow on which drovers are supposed to sleep. - Nabgirder (Ά Bridle') is the combination of the cant word nab ('head') and the deveibal noun girder, used figuratively to indicate the bridles encircling an animal's head. - Naskin (Ά Goal or Bridewell') is the result of the combination of the Scots word nask ('withe') and the cant term ken ('place'), literally indicating a cage and metonymically a prison. - Nazie Cove ('Drunkard') is the combination of two canting terms: the adjective Nazie ('Drunken') and the noun Cove ('Man'). - In Neck stamper (Ά Pot-boy') the first word may be the graphic variant of nick ('the bottom in a beer-can, diminishing the quantity of liquor contained in it'), while the second is a cant word meaning 'carrier'. -Nubbing cheat ('The gallows') is the combination of two canting terms: nubbing ('hanging') and cheat ('thing'). -Nubbing Cove ('The Hangman') is the combination of the two cant words nubbing ('hanging') and cove ('man'). - Nubbing Ken ('The Sessions house') literally means 'a hanging place'; here it indicates the place where a sentence of hanging is pronounced. - Prig-napper (Ά Horse-stealer') is the combination of two words: prig ('horse', derived from the existing cant verb prig meaning 'ride') and napper ('stealer'). - Queer Cove (Ά Rogue') is the combination of two existing canting terms: the adjective Queer Cbase, roguish') and the noun Cove ('man'). - Similarly the compound Queer Mort (Ά pockie Baggage') combines the adjective queer Cbase, roguish') and the noun mort ('woman'). - In Ratling Cove (Ά Coachman') the first word indicates the driving of the vehicle or the cracking of the whip, while the second is the cant word for 'man'. - Ratling Mumpers ('Such who only beg at Coaches') is the combination of the cant words ratling (modification of the usual cant term ratler to designate a coach) and mumpers Cbeggars'). - Ridgcully (Ά Goldsmith') is the combination of two canting nouns: Ridge ('Gold') and Cully, used in its general semantic value of 'person'. - The compound Rum boozing Welts (Ά bunch of grapes') is made up of the three cant words rum ('excellent'), boozing ('liquor' or 'drinking') and welts ("bunches'). - Rum Cully (Ά rich Coxcomb') is the result of the combination of the adjective rum ('excellent') and the noun Cully ('fool'). - Rum glimmar ('King of the Link boys') combines rum ('excellent') with glimmar (carrier of light, from glim = light).

45 - Rum-gutlers ('Canary') is the combination of the cant adjective rum ('excellent') and the noun gutlers, an alteration of the noun derived from the standard verb to guzzle. The meaning of this compound ('Canary wine') may be the result of reduction of an original form wine for rum gutlers or rum wine for gutlers. - Shoplift combines the standard noun shop with the cant term lift meaning 'thief. - In Smacking Cove ('Coachman') the first term reminds one of the cracking of the whip and the second is the cant term to designate a man. - In the compound Stall whimper (Ά Bastard') the first lexeme may either be the standard word stall used in a figurative way or the homographie canting term meaning 'accomplice', while the second is probably the clipping of the deverbal noun whimperer. - According to Partridge (1984) the first word in the compound Stam flesh ('To Cant') "is probably cognate with A.-S. stemn, a voice"; the second term, instead, is the cant adjective corresponding to the meaning 'characteristic of the underworld'. - Topping cheat ('The Gallows') combines two cant words: topping ('hanging') and cheat ('thing'). - Topping Cove ('The Hangman') is the combination of the two cant words topping ('hanging') and cove ('man'). - Touting Ken (Ά Tavern Bar') combines the word touting (from the verb tout, meaning 'to drink copiously') and the cant lexeme ken (meaning 'place'). - Witcher bubber (Ά Silver Bowl') is composed of two canting nouns: witcher ('silver') and bubber (indicating a drinking bowl). - Witcher-cully (Ά Silver-smith') is the combination of Witcher ('Silver') and Cully ('fool') used in the general sense of 'person'. - Witcher-tilter (Ά Silver-hilted sword) is the combination of the two nouns witcher (meaning 'silver') and filter (the cant word for 'sword').

3.2.13. Derivation Another very common word-formation process is that of derivation; a great use of this process is made in the coining of the new terms included in The Canting Academy, indeed 37 new expressions are derived, representing almost one fourth of the total. Seven of these are obtained from existing cant terms, while the rest originate from current standard words. The great majority of derived forms (33 terms) are the result of the process of suffixation, while four are cases of conversion.

3.2.13.1. Suffixation As regards suffixation, the most popular process is the creation of new nouns by means of the addition of the -er suffix to existing verbs or nouns. Here are the neologisms thus formed found in Head's dictionary: - Batner ('An Oxe') from the cant verb to batten ('to fatten'), with subsequent internal clipping.

46

- Blower ('One mans particular Wench') from the standard English veib to blow ('to bloom, to blossom') used in a metaphorical sense16. - Cracker ('An Arse') from the standard English verb to crack, used in a dysphemistic way. - According to Partridge (1984), Dancers ('Stairs') should be derived from the standard verb to dance, "because one 'dances' down them". - Glazyer (One that creeps in at casements, or unrips glass windows to filch and steal') adds the suffix to a form derived from the canting noun glaze, meaning 'glass window'. - Grinders ('Teeth') derive from the standard English verb to grind ('to reduce to small particles'). - Gropers ('Blind men') has been coined to designate those who have to grope their way. - Heaver (Ά Breast') comes from the standard verb to heave and indicates that part of the body that alternatively rises and falls. - Lifter, or plyer (Ά crutch') indicates that stick that helps people to lift themselves and move about. - Moon Curser (Ά Link boy') is derived from the standard English verb to curse. The meaning of this term is thus explained by Grose (1785): "Link boys are said to curse the moon, because it renders their assistance unnecessary." - Mumpers ('Gentile Beggars') is derived from the canting verb to mump ('to beg'). - In Napper of Naps (Ά Sheep-stealer') the first word of the expression is a noun derived from the verb to nap (meaning 'to take, to steal'), while the second noun may be interpreted as a pun on the nap of wool. - Panter ('An heart') derives from the standard verb to pant, the relationship between the verb and the noun is thus explained by Grose in his second edition of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1788): "The human heart, which often pants in time of danger"17. - Peeper (Ά Looking glass') is formed from the standard verb to peep, and indicates the object into which one peeps. - Plyer (Ά crutch') is derived from the verb to ply with the dialectal meaning of 'to bend'. - In Rum dropper (Ά Vintner') the cant adjective rum ('excellent') is followed by the cant noun designating a distiller, obtained from the standard verb to drop ('to cause to fall in drops'). - Rum hopper (Ά Drawer'): here too the adjective rum is accompanied by the deverbal noun derived from to hop (in the sense of 'to flavour with hops, so as to give taste to beer')18. - Rum Padders ('The better sort of High-way men') is the combination of rum ('excellent') and padders (from pad = highway).

16

17

18

Partridge (1961) instead derives this term from the German verb blühen (to bloom or blossom'); this however, could be the source of the synonymous canting word blowen rather than blower. Partridge (1961) suggests a different derivation, based on its overlapping with the homograph panter meaning hart', which, however, was first reported only twenty years later, in B.E.'s dictionary (1698). Partridge (1961) instead derives this term from a different meaning of the verb to hop, that of springing on one's foot: "[a hopper] hops about' very briskly".

47 - Smiter ('An Arm') derives from the standard veib to smite, as this part of the body is often used to strike or hit. - Squeeker (Ά Bar-boy') is the graphic alteration of the noun obtained from the verb to squeak·, two possible meanings of the latter are likely to have been adopted in the coining of this word: the slang meaning of'to confess, to turn informer' or the standard one of to scream'; squeaker may also be the metaphoric adoption of the homographie term meaning 'young bird'. - Trundlers (Tease') comes from the standard English verb to trundle ('to roll'). - Tumbler (Ά Cart') derives from ther verb tumble, to remind one of the cart's lumbering motion. Another popular derivational process is that of adding the suffix -ing to a verb in order to obtain either a new adjective or noun; in Head's dictionary we can find two examples of the former and one of the latter: - The first word in the expression Bounsing-cheat (Ά Bottle') may have been obtained from the verb to bounce, indicating "the explosion in drawing the cork" (Grose, 1785); the whole expression, however, could be a misspelling of the compound bousing-cheat, based on the existing canting terms bouse ('to drink') and cheat ('thing'). - Nubbing ('Hanging') is the noun formed from the canting verb to nub ('to hang'), derived from the noun nub, meaning 'neck'. - Peeping ('Drowsie, or sleepy') comes from the cant verb to peep, meaning 'to sleep'. Other two common derivational patterns are those of obtaining an adverb from an adjective by means of the addition of the suffix -ly and of adding the suffix -y to a verb to obtain a new adjective. The examples of these processes found in Head's dictionary are the following: - Beenshiply ('Very well'), from the cant adjective Beenship ('Very good'). - Peery ('Fearful'), from the standard verb to peer ('to look searchingly'), which was developing the meaning 'to be circumspect', first reported in Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The other cases of suffixation found in The Canting Academy concern the formation of new nouns by means of the suffixes -er and -ster, or of three new past participles with the use of the suffix -t/(e)d: - As regards Bluffer ('An Host'), Partridge (1961) suggests its derivation from the standard English adjective bluff, meaning 'hearty'. - In Prig-star (Ά Rival in Love') -star represents a graphic variant of the suffix -ster, added to the existing cant verb to prig (meaning 'to steal') or the noun prig (meaning •thief). - Chaft ('Beaten or bang'd') is the past participle of the cant verb to chafe, meaning 'to thrash soundly'. - Chap'd ('Dry or Thirsty') is the past participle of the standard verb to chap, meaning 'to crack', as lips do when they are too dry. - Romboyl'd ('Sought after with a warrant') is the past participle form of the verb to romboyle having a very similar meaning ('to take or seize').

48 A derivational origin could also be suggested as regards the formation of Fogus ('Tobacco'), in which the Latin suffix -us could have been added to the standard English noun fog (in the sense of 'dense mist').

3.2.13.2. Conversion New terms may also have been obtained from existing words with no alteration of their form but with a mere change of their syntactic category; the four examples of this process of conversion that can be found in Head's dictionary are the following: - Beenship ('Worship') is derived from the homographie cant adjective meaning 'veiy good'. - The noun Budge (One that steals cloaks or ought else, slipping into an home in the dark') may be a recategorization of the homographie verb having the meaning of 'to move swiftly'. - Ogles ('Eyes') is a noun derivation from the existing standard English verb. - Track ('To go') derives from the standard English noun 'track' in the sense of 'to follow a track or path'.

3.3. Conclusion

The analysis carried out so far has thus highlighted Richard Head's important contribution to the careful recording of those canting terms which were used in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. Head's great merit is to have compiled his dictionary not merely deriving his terms from previous publications, but adopting all those expressions which were employed at his time by the English underworld and providing them with appropriate standard equivalents. In spite of the abundance of the new terms recorded in The English Rogue and in The Canting Academy, Richard Head's contribution has usually been ignored. As a matter of fact, on examining several diachronic dictionaries of English cant (such as Farmer and Henley 1890-1904, Partridge 1961 or Partridge 1984), one realizes that some of Head's first quotations of a new canting term have been omitted. A careful analysis of The English Rogue and The Canting Academy, instead, shows that not only were many new terms included in these publications, but that most of them were borrowed by subsequent dictionaries, both of canting expressions and of the general language. Moreover, the current adoption of several terms first reported in The English Rogue and in The Canting Academy not only in the language of the underworld but also in the more general tongue (such as flog, kidnapper and shoplift) testifies to the reliability of Richard Head's precious work, which was based on a careful collection of new data and on a faithful recording of them.

Chapter 4

The Canting Terms of Coles' Dictionary

Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary1 is one of the first monolingual dictionaries published in Great Britain in the seventeenth century2. Besides increasing the number of entries commonly reported in previous publications3, this dictionary shows other important innovations compared to preceding works of the same kind, such as the inclusion of a list of words belonging to different geographical varieties of the English language (with the specification of the counties in which they are used) and the insertion of a number of canting terms. To justify the inclusion of the latter, Coles provides the following motivation: Tis no disparagement to understand the Canting Terms. It may chance to save your throat from being cut, or (at least) your Pocket from being pickt. (Coles 1676/1973: To the Reader')

The identification of the nature of these terms is clearly provided by Coles, who devotes a specific entry to the word canting in his dictionary, defining it as "the Language of Rogues and Beggars". In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries canting terms had been reported in several publications specifically devoted to that subject, but they had never been included in English monolingual dictionaries, which were strictly limited to the presentation of the various lexical items of the standard tongue. The 'vulgar words' included in Henry Cockeram's The English Dictionary (1623) did not correspond to canting terms, but merely represented common words of Anglo-Saxon origin, for each of which Cockeram provided a 'hard word' or the corresponding lexeme of foreign (mainly Latinate) origin4.

2

3

4

An English Dictionary was first published in London in 1676, and soon became very popular, as its eleven reissues and new editions in the following fifty-six years testify; all the quotations in this paper are taken from the facsimile of a British Library copy printed by Georg Olms Verlag in 1973. For an analysis of the first monolingual dictionaries of the English language cf. Stames and Noyes (1946/1991), Schäfer (1970), Riddel (1974), Hayashi (1978), Stein (1985) and Gotti (1997). In his preface Coles emphasizes the higher number of entries included in his dictionary compared with that of previous publications: The addition that is made to the number of words in former Authors of this kind, is almost incredible (considering the bulk) being raised from seven in th' Expositor to almost thirty thousand here; which is some thousands more than are in Mr Blunts Glossographia or Mr Philips World of Words. While Stames and Noyes (1946/1991: 32-33) maintain that this list of 'vulgar terms' accompanied by their refined equivalents is drawn from Rider's Bibliotheca Scholastica (1589) or from the later revisions (1606, 1612, 1617) of this book carried out by Francis Holyoke, Schäfer (1970: 39) and Riddell (1974: 133) have demonstrated that these words - included in the

50 Coles therefore is to be considered the first compiler to have admitted canting terms into a general dictionary of the English language. The canting terms included in Coles' dictionary have not been submitted to detailed analysis in previous research work, either in the general field of English lexicography or in the more limited one of cant terminology. The only paper taking into consideration this aspect of Coles' work is Gertrude Noyes' article on the development of cant lexicography in England, which identifies Richard Head's The Canting Academy (1673) as the most immediate source of the canting terms included in An English Dictionary: The Canting Academy was probably used as the most convenient source. Coles has most of the words in Head's list and does not go noticeably beyond it. Definitions are brief, sometimes verbatim as in Head; and a few longer definitions show similarity in phrasing. (Noyes 1941/1991:220)

This too, however, is a very short and general comment, which appears at the end of a brief survey of the topic. In order to provide a more detailed consideration of the matter, we have therefore undertaken an accurate analysis of the canting terms included in An English Dictionary, with the purpose of assessing the degree of Coles' indebtedness to Richard Head's The Canting Academy, from both a quantitative and a qualitative point of view.

4.1. Coles' adoption of Head's canting terms

From the quantitative point of view, Coles' canting terms amount to 231 entries, not a large number if compared to that of about thirty thousand of the other lexemes presented in An English Dictionary, but very similar to the number of terms commonly found in previous canting dictionaries and glossaries5. Coles' canting terms are not reported in a separate section of his book, but are listed in alphabetical order6 together with the other lexemes belonging to the standard language or pertaining to specific geographical varieties of the English tongue; however, they are easily identifiable, as they are marked by the abbreviation c appearing between the entry and its gloss. To simplify our analysis, we have grouped all the canting terms appearing in Coles' dictionary in a separate list (cf. Appendix 2). It has thus been easier to compare Coles'

second part of the dictionary - are taken in their reversed form from the first part of the same work. For example, the terms appearing in the 'Canting before the English' section of the dictionary included in The Canting Academy amount to 266. In Head's dictionary canting terms are grouped by initial letter only (with no account taken of subsequent letters for purposes of ordering). Coles, instead, rearranges them in alphabetical order as we understand it today, with occasional mistakes, as the following examples testify: fambles comes before famble-cheats, gigger before gigg, glymmer before glym jack, gruntingpeck before grunting cheat, harmans before harman-beck, libben before libbedge, nab-girder before nab-cheat, prats before prating-cheat, cropping of the rotan after romboyld, snitch before snilches, stamps before stampers and stamp-flesh, touting-ken before tout.

51

terms to Head's, particularly to the ones included in the section called 'An Alphabetical Canting Vocabulary - Canting before the English' appearing on pages 34-46 of The Canting Academy. This comparison has enabled us to verify the validity of Noyes' statement, as it is immediately clear that the great majority of Coles' entries are taken from Head's dictionary. On closer examination, however, one also notices that Coles has not copied all of Head's words verbatim 7 , but has made a series of modifications to several of them. First of all he has corrected the misspellings found in his source, as in the cases of Rarling Cove corrected into Ratling-Cove, Smudge into Snudge, Tour into Tout, Wicher-cully into Witcher-cully. In doing this, Coles proves to be consistent with the remark made in his Preface, where he criticises those dictionary compilers "that pretend to correction and exactness" and that instead "transcribe out of others (hand over head) their very faults and all". Since his canting terms are to be included in a wider dictionary of the English tongue, Coles has to limit the space devoted to them; he does so by reducing both the number of entries and the length of their definitions. In order to keep his borrowing to the minumum, Coles makes use of various devices: in several cases he joins into a single entry two canting terms dealt with separately in The Canting Academy. This is the case of AbramCove ('Naked or poor man') which combines Head's adjective Abram ('Naked') and noun phrase Abram Cove ( Ά Poor Fellow'). Another case is Bite ('to cheat, also to steal') which is the combination of Head's verb Bite ('To cheat or cozen') and the one appearing in the expression Bite the Roger ('Steal the Portmanteau'). A third case is that of Glaziers ('eyes, also Filchers by unripping or creeping into Windows'), which combines two of Head's entries: Glazyers ('Eyes') and Glazyer (One that creeps in at casements, or unrips glass windows to filch and steal'). In joining various terms under the same entry, Coles sometimes mixes grammatical categories which are kept separate by Head; for example, in An English Dictionary the entry Autem is glossed by both a noun and an adjective ('Church; also married'), while the two meanings are dealt with separately in The Canting Academy. Autem ( Ά Church') and Autem Mort ( Ά Married Woman'). Another device adopted by Coles to save space is the omission of those compounds whose components already appear individually in his dictionary. The terms thus ignored are the following 8 : Boosing-ken, A Tippling-house (Booz = drink, Ken = house) Been Darkmans, Good night (Been can be deduced from Beenship - goodness, Darkmans = night, evening) Deuseavile-Stampers, Country Carriers (Deuseaville = the Country, Stampers = shoes or carriers) Flicker-snapt, A Glass broken (Flicker = a glass, snapped is not entered as it is a very common English word used with its standard meaning)

7

8

The entries taken verbatim are those marked with an asterisk in Appendix 2. The only difference that sometimes may exist is the presence or absence of a hyphen or the fact that the two parts of an entry are written in a split form or as a single word. These cases of differentiation are presented in Appendix 3. The words in brackets correspond to the entries included in Coles' dictionary.

52 Floggin Cove, The whipper of Bridewell, or any other that whips people commonly called at Dublin in Ireland Bellores (Flog = to whip, Cove already appearing in Abram-Cove = Naked or poor man) Nazie Cove, A Drunkard (Nasie = drunken, Cove cf. above) Priggers ofPrancers, Horse-stealers (Prigs = Thieves, Prancer - a horse) Queer Ken, A Prison (Queer = base, roguish, Ken cf. above) Queer Mort, A pockie Baggage (Queer cf. above, Mort = a Woman) Queer Cove, A Rogue (Queer cf. above, Cove cf. above) Rum glimmar, King of the Link boys (Rum = gallant, Glym Jack = a link-boy). For the same reason of economy of space Coles does not adopt from Head those idiomatic phrases whose components have already been listed separately in his dictionary. Here are such cases: Cut Been Whids, To speak well (Cut - speak, Been cf. above, Whids = words) Cut Quire Whids, To Speak evilly (Cut cf. above, Quire = base, roguish, Whids cf. above) Flick the Peeter, Cut the Cloak-bag (Flick = to cut, Peeter = a portmantle) Flog'd at the Tumbler, Whipt at the Cartsarse (Flog = to whip, Tumbler = a Cart) Tip the Mish, Give the Shirt (Tip appears in Coles' entry Tip the cole to Adam Tiler = give the [stoln] money to your [running] Comrade, Mish = a shirt). In order to keep the number of entries to the minimum, Coles often omits those basic forms which already appear in derived terms listed in his dictionary, as the following examples show: Been, Good or well (Beenship = goodness) Cove, A Man (Abram-Cove = Naked or poor man) Prigg, to Ride (Prigging = riding) Rum pad, The highway (Rum-padders = brave high-way men). Another reason for neglecting some of Head's lexemes is the avoidance of those words which already appear in the context of some idiomatic phrases reported as separate entries in Coles' dictionary. Here are such cases: Bing, To go (Bing cnvast = go away) Couch, To lie (Couch a Hogshead = Go to sleep) Tip, To give (Tip the cole to Adam Tiler cf. above) Win, A penny (Deuswins = Two pence, Tres-wins = Three pence). In other cases Coles adopts only a part of Head's longest entries, especially when the phrases to be omitted contain lexemes appearing elsewhere in his dictionary. Here are the three cases found in An English Dictionary ·. Blot the skrip, enter into Bond9 (from Head's Blot the Skrip and jark it = To be engaged or bound for any body) Fam-grasp, agree with (Fam-grasp the Cove = To agree with an Adversary) Track, to go (Track up the dancers = Go up the Stairs).

9

Coles takes this gloss from the example provided by Head for his entry Skrip: "As the Cully did freely blot the Skrip, and so tipt me forty Hogs', that is, One enter'd into bond with me for forty shillings".

53 Moreover, Coles omits to mention all those examples reported by Head whose main entry already appears in his dictionary (such as Bite the Cully, The Mort hath tipt the Bube to the Cully, Dup the Ken, Tip me my Earnest, etc.)· In some cases, however, Coles prefers to make use of the opposite technique, that is, to adopt the example as his main entry and avoid instead the separate listing of the basic form. This is what happens when he enters the expressions Heave the Booth ('rob the house') and Pike on the Been ('run for it'10) instead of the simple forms Heave ('To Rob') and Pike ('To run'). Besides all these omissions - which can clearly be explained by reference to the criterion of repetition avoidance -, there are four entries of Head's whose non-selection by Coles cannot be explained with such motivation: Blow off on the Ground-sils, O.Q.P. [i.e., to lie with a woman] on the Floar or Stairs Redshank, A Mallard Skipper, A Barnel Shoulder sham, Partner to a File.

The second of these expressions does appear i n ^ « English Dictionary, but marked as Irish Scots rather than cant; as regards the third, the misprint barnel for barne may have puzzled Coles, especially because neither form appears in the English-before-Canting section of Head's dictionary. The omission of the first, instead, may be due to its obscene nature. It should be remembered that in his Preface Coles criticises some previous or contemporary dictionaries that are "too plain (stuffi with obscenity not to be named)".

4.2. Coles' alteration of Head's spellings

In borrowing Head's terms, Coles frequently modifies the spelling of words, both in the entries and in their glosses. A frequent alteration regards the use of hyphens or the joining of lexemes in the case of compounds. As can be seen from the various examples reported in Appendix 3, there is no strict rule which can be deduced from Coles' modifications: at times he adds hyphens and at other times he deletes them, sometimes he joins words and on other occasions he separates them. Many of these divergencies from the original may be considered unintentional and are probably due to misprints or arbitrary interventions of the printer. On the whole, however, one can notice a general tendency on Coles' part to join the various elements of a compound so as to clearly identify the result as a single term; moreover, some alterations may be explained with a uniformity criterion, as in the case of the insertion of the hyphen between the two elements of tres-wins to imitate the analogous term deuswins. Some graphic alterations may be attributed to a possible desire to imitate the form of a standard word having a similar meaning, as in the case of Bube -> Bubo, Skrip -> Scrip11. Also letters not frequently used in the English language are sometimes substituted by their

10

11

Coles shortens the definition provided by Head by cutting its last part ('as fast as you can'), thus giving an inexact standard equivalent of the canting expression. In the entry Blot the Skrip, however, Coles retains Head's spelling with the k instead of the c.

54

corresponding usual ones, such as the letter s (rather than z) to render the voiced alveolar fricative, as in the case of Nazie Nasie12. In many instances one can notice the omission of single letters; in examining these cases, however, it is difficult to decide whether such alterations are the result of misprints or are attributable to the compiler's decision. Here are the examples of the differentiations found in the two dictionaries: Budge Clincker Cobble-colter Ferme Slate Grunting Peck, Porke Mish Topper, A Coate Stamps, Leggs Trundlers, Pease

Budg Clinker Coble-colter Ferm Slat Pork Coat Legs Peas.

A frequent case of orthographic simplification found in the above list concerns the apparently systematic omission of word-final e and the substitution of plural-morpheme s for es\ the plural-morpheme alteration, however, does not seem to have been applied in every case, as an example of insertion of e in the plural morpheme has also been found: Cackling-farts, Eggs

Egges.

Other instances of addition of single letters have also been noticed, as in the following entries: Deusevile Margry Prater

->

Deuseville13 Margery Prater14.

In analyzing other alterations, we may hypothesize a preference of the author of An English Dictionary for certain spellings, as in the use of the suffix -y rather than -ie in his gloss 'drowsy' for the entry Peeping to render Head's 'drowsie'. Apart from modifying the spelling of Head's entries, Coles at times adds to a headword an alternative graphic form. This, for example, happens in the case of the addition of the variant Quire to Head's Queer, the former being the spelling more frequently used in previous cant dictionaries. Another case is represented by the addition of the form Bener to Head's Benar, which may be interpreted as Coles' wish to provide a form containing the familiar comparative morpheme.

12 13

14

It is to be noted, however, that in the analogous case of Nizie the letter ζ remains unchanged. The possibility of the influence of the French spelling of ville is put in doubt by the non-addition of the / in another borrowed term, that is, rum-vile. In this case Coles probably interprets Head's spelling as a misprint, as in other parts of The Canting Academy (cf. pp. 4 and 20) the term is written with an e

55

4.3. Coles' rendering of Head's definitions

Coles' reformulation of Head's entries is not limited to the their graphic form, but often involves their definitions. A frequent alteration on Coles' part is the shortening of the original glosses, which confirms the criterion of space economy pointed out above. The reduction of the original form is usually limited to the elimination of very few words, as can be seen in the following examples15: Flog, To whip (as in Bridewell) Grunting cheat, A (Sucking) pig Nizie, A Fool (or Coxcomb) Palliard, (One) whose father is a born Beggar16 Peak, (Any) lace Peck, -kidg, (Any sort of) meat Prigs17, (Are all sorts of) thieves Romboyld, (Sought after) with a warrant Rumboyl18, (A Ward or) Watch Rum-gutlers, Canary (wine).

In order to save space, in one case Coles combines two items of the gloss into a single one, including a part of it in square brackets: Light-mans, Day, or Day-break

[break of] day.

On other occasions the parts omitted are much longer and correspond to exemplifications or comments commonly added by Head to complete his definition of a specific canting term. Here are the quotations referring to such cases: Gilt, A Picklock(, Where note that some of them are so excellent at it, that they are furnished with all sorts of Gilts or Keys, from a Church door to the smallest Cabinet, and almost at first sight will dexterously open any door, trunk, chest, or any lock whatever.) Mumpers, Gentile Beggars(, Such as will not accept of Victuals, but money or cloaths, and these beg under the pretence of being decay"d Gentlemen, Tradesmen, or such who have been burn'd out or shipwrack'd).

Although Coles shows a tendency towards reducing the length of Head's glosses, he sometimes adds one or more words to them so as to make them clearer or more exact, as the following cases show: Beenship, Worship Bluffer, An Host Stampers, Shooes Tout, To look out 15 16 17

18

Worship, goodness an Host or Landlord shoes or carriers to look out or upon.

We have put in brackets the part of Head's gloss omitted by Coles. As in a few other cases, Coles changes the spelling of the last word into begger. In analogy with all the compounds whose first lexeme is prig, Coles drops one of the g's found in Head's entry. In borrowing this term from The Canting Academy, Coles drops the final e and starts his gloss with the definite article.

56 In the first of these examples the addition of the abstract noun 'goodness' may be due to the presence in Head's dictionary of the entry Been meaning 'good'. We may hypothezise here Coles' desire to present the language system as transparently systematic as possible. So, since been is glossed 'good' by Head, Coles defines beenship as 'goodness'. This standardizing attitude might also explain Coles' non-adoption of Head's entry Beenshiply ('Very well'), which might have looked to Coles as a strange adverb obtained from the combination of a noun and the suffix -ly. Since Coles was relying on Head, he was ignorant of the adjectival use of beenship 'very good', attested elsewhere, which would make beenshiply an acceptable form. In one case the addition of elements takes place in the entry itself, and is used to complete the reference of the premodifier both to a male and female noun: Gentry Mort, A Gentlewoman

-)

Gentry Cove or Mort, Gentleman or woman.

Coles does not limit his intervention on Head's text to a mere reduction in length or, rarely, to the addition of a word or two, but often changes parts of the glosses. As the following cases show, there is no unifying principle that regulates such modifications: sometimes an indefinite article is turned into a definite one, other times the indefinite article is deleted, while on other occasions a singular gloss is turned into a plural one: Batner, An Oxe Betty, An Instrument to open a door Harman-beck, A Constable Panter, An heart

->

Oxe An instrument to open doors the Constable the heart.

An interesting indication of difference in the grapho-phonological system of the two authors is Coles' dropping of the final η of the indefinite article when followed by a word beginning with an h : Ferm19, An hole Ken, An house Margery Prater, An Hen - ) Milken, An house breaker Nab, An Head -> Nab-cheat, An Hat Prancer, An horse

a hole a house a hen a house-breaker a head a hat a horse.

In a few cases he makes greater changes to the gloss reported in The Canting Academy, either to make it more concise or probably because he thinks his is more appropriate than the one found in the original: Blower, One mans particular Wench - ) a Quean Brush, To fly -> run away Budg, One that steals Cloaks or ought else, slipping into an house in the dark -> he that slips in to steal cloaks, &c Filch, A Staff with an hole in the end thereof, in which upon occasion, your Rogues will fasten an hook, to pull things cunningly from an Hedge, or through a Casement a staff with a hole for a hook upon occasion

19

As said above, this word has a final e in Head's dictionary, dropped by Coles.

57 Kidnapper, A fellow that walketh the streets, and takes all advantages to pick up the younger sort of people, whom with lies and many fair promises he inticeth on board a ship and transports them into forreign plantations a stealer or enticer away of Children, &c Nap, To take, or cheat with the dice, that is, by certainly securing one chance -> to cheat at Dice Naskin, A Goal, or Bridewell -> a jail or Bridewell Ratling-mumpers, Such who onely beg at Coaches beggers at Coaches Rum-cully, A rich Coxcomb a rich fool Rum-padders, The better sort of High-way men brave high-way men Stow your whids, Be wary speak warily20 Shoplift, One that filcheth Commodities out of a Shop, under the pretence of cheapning or buying them of the Shop-keeper one that pretends to cheapen, and steals wares Snudge, One that lies underneath a bed, to watch an opportunity to rob the house one that hides himself in a house to do mischief Stalling-ken, A Brokers Shop, or an house that will recive stoln goods a brokers, or any house that receives stolen goods Tip the cole to Adam Tiler, Give your pick-pocket money presently to your running Comrade give the [stoln] money to your [running] Comrade. In a couple of cases the reformulation of Head's glosses is due to Coles' wish to avoid the use of the word arse, probably considered too vulgar: Cracker, An Arse Cropping of the Rotan, Carts-arse

-> ->

the breech the Carts tail.

4.4. Coles' new entries

Apart from altering the spelling and definition of several canting terms borrowed from Head's dictionary, Coles inserts a few new entries which do not appear as such in The Canting Academy, indeed, eight expressions are listed in An English Dictionary as separate new entries. On closer inspection, however, we find that seven of them are present in Head's dictionary or may have been derived from words appearing in it. This is the case of Glimmer, which is inserted in spite of the fact that the form Glymmer is already present with the same meaning ('fire'). The former has been created by analogy with the compounds listed in the same dictionary containing an i instead of a y, such as glimfenders and glimflashy. The new verbal noun Mounding Cbegging') replaces two entries of Head's, that is, the verb Maund ('To beg') and the deverbal agentive noun Maunders ('Beggars'), thus enabling 20

This meaning is more appropriate than Head's, as is confirmed by the example provided in The Canting Academy: Stow your Whids and plant 'em, for the Cove of the Ken can cant 'em, Have a care what you say, the Man of the House understands you. Moreover, Coles' new gloss is in line with his insertion of the entry Whids (meaning "words') in An English Dictionary.

58 Coles to economize on space. The same reason explains the listing of the noun Mort ('a Woman') as a separate entry instead of the mention of two compound forms containing that lexeme, that is, Autem Mort and Queer Mort. Also the new entry Cropping of the Rotan ('the Carts tail') can be found in Head's dictionaiy, not as a separate entiy but as part of the example accompanying the lexeme Flog: As the Prancer drew the Quire Cove at the Cropping of the Rotan through the Rum pads of the Rum vile, and was flog'd by the Nubbing-Cove. That is, The Rogue was drag'd at carts-arse, through the chief streets of London, and was soundly whipt by the Hangman.

Similarly, the entry Snitch, snitchel ('a fillip') is extracted from the example provided by Head to clarify his presentation of the term Gigg: As give him a rum snitch, or snitchel the Gigg, that is, Fillip him on the Nose.

On other occasions Coles extracts a new term from an entiy of The Canting Academy, this is the case of Snilches ('sees or eyes you'), which is taken from Head's entry The Cui Snilches, meaning 'The man eyes you'. A similar type of borrowing takes place with Coles' new term whids ('words'), which appears in Head's entries Cut been whids ('To speak well') and Cut Quire Whids ('To speak evilly') as well as in the example for Stow your whids ('Have a care what you say'). The only canting word listed in An English Dictionary which appears not to have been taken from The Canting Academy is Hictius doctius. The hypothesis that this word may have been noticed and recorded in a dictionaiy for the first time by Coles himself may be confirmed by the observation that this is the only case in which the compiler specifies the etymology of his entry, its function and the category of its users; indeed, in the gloss to this term Coles points out that this is a modification of the Latin expression Hie est doctus, and adds that it is "a canting word among Juglers, to amuse the people". The reliability of the existence of this term is confirmed by the use of similar forms although with different spellings - in previous and contemporary publications, as the following quotations show: Bonus Genius or Nuntius invisibilis, or Hiccius Doccius as my senior cals it. (in Anon., Hocus Pocus Junior (1634, enlarged in 1635), quoted in Partridge 1961: 329) I shall stand here till one of them has whipt away my Mistris about business, with a Hixius Doxius, with the force of repartee, and this, and that, and Everything in the world. (Shadwell, Virtuoso, ii, p. 19 (1676), quoted in Fanner and Henley 1890-1904/1965, ΙΠ: 306)

In spite of the fact that this expression appears elsewhere, Coles' innovative contribution consists in being the first compiler to have included this term in an English dictionary, and to have specified not only its function but also its probable origin.

59

4.5. Conclusion

The analysis of Elisha Coles' dictionary carried out in this chapter has thus reached its goal, which consisted in pointing out both the quantitative and qualitative degree of indebtedness of An English Dictionary to Richard Head's publication. From the quantitative point of view, all but one of Coles' entries derive from The Canting Academy. In spite of the fact that almost all of Head's canting terms have been retained, Coles has managed to reduce the original number of the entries, thus economizing on space, a constraint originating from the inclusion of these lexemes in a vast dictionary already listing almost thirty thousand words and expressions. Economizing on space, however, has not always been strictly followed by Coles; on the contrary, he has often altered - and at times even lengthened - the original text, so as to render the entries or definitions more appropriate to what he considered the real meanings of those words or more similar to the variety of the English language which was then considered standard. The great merit of Coles' contribution, however, remains his decision to include these canting terms not in a specific publication devoted only to the language of the underworld, but in a general dictionary of the English tongue. The inclusion of these words - along with a few regional dialectal terms - in his general dictionary provided his readers with an idea of the different varieties of their language: not only its standard forms, but also those expressions that were commonly used by particular social and geographic groups in the British Isles, thus allowing a more complex - but also more balanced - view of linguistic reality.

Chapter 5

Β.E.'s Innovative Approach

The wide interest in roguish literature in the second half of the 17th century determined the appearance of a different perception of the members of this social class and the acceptance of their jargon as a variety of the English language. This new perception is testified to by the inclusion of many canting terms in lexicographical works concerning general English - such as Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary - and by the publication of specific volumes listing not only the words traditionally used by the members of the underworld but also many other expressions typical of a colloquial or informal style. It is one of the latter publications - B.E.'s A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, 1698[?]' - which is the object of the analysis of this chapter.

5.1. The aims of the dictionary

The wider range of expressions collected by B.E.2 is already anticipated in the title of the dictionary itself, which does not only underline the novelty of the work, but also its more extended inclusiveness, aiming at presenting not simply the "ancient" terms - that is, those reported in previous publications - but also the "modern" ones. It is to be noted that in reproducing the traditional expressions, B.E. does not merely take into consideration the previous canting glossaries, but the various other parts of the publications in which they were included; this explains, for example, the insertion in his New Dictionary of the denominations of the different "Ranks or Orders of the Canting Tribe", which were listed

The original text bears no date. The date shown here is the one suggested by Burke; referring to the words appearing on the title page ("By B E., Gent. London: Printed for W. Hawes at the Rose in Ludgate-street, P. Gilboume at the Corner of Chancery-lane in Fleet-street, and W. Davis at the Black Bull in Cornhill"), he provides this motivation:

2

Various dates of publication have been given for this celebrated little dictionary, ranging from 1690 to 1720. Hawes was at the Rose in Ludgate street in 1698, and Gilboume was at ChanceryLane in Fleet street in the years 1697-1698. The only year common to both printers, therefore, is 1698. (Burke 1939: 65) The author's identity is still a mystery. Here is what Burke writes about him: Nothing is known of B.E., gent. From his dictionary one gathers that he was an antiquary. Some of his words and definitions bear no relation to slang and cant, but merely gratify his whim for curiosa. He may have known Rochester, DTJrfey, and the Earl of Dorset, and a close study of their literary remains may give a clue to his identity. (Burke 1939: 65)

61

in the descriptions of the lives and habits of rogues rather than in the glossaries concerning their language. The listing of the various roguish ranks and orders is to be considered consistent with B.E.'s view of "the Canting Crew" which is seen as structured in "several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggers, Thieves, Cheats, &c.". The definition that he provides for their language is also in line with the traditional interpretation of the term: Canting, c. the Cypher or Mysterious Language, of Rogues, Gypsies, Beggers, Thieves, &c.3

In spite of this definition and the general title, B.E.'s dictionary includes many noncanting terms, the inclusion of which is anticipated on the title page of the dictionary, where they are referred to as "Proverbs, Phrases, Figurative Speeches, &c.". The motivation for this extension of the entries, however, is not specified by the author, although it may be somehow connected with the widening of the readership at which the dictionary is aimed, which is to include "all sorts of people (especially Foreigners)". The title page provides a motivation for the whole book, similar to that provided by previous dictionary compilers, to help readers "secure their Money and preserve their Lives". To this motivation, however, B.E. adds another purpose, which is indicative of the wider perspective according to which he has undertaken his work, i.e. to be "very Diverting and Entertaining". This specification explains one of the features of the dictionary: the frequent provision of detailed information about customs and objects pertaining to the life of a very large sector of the lower social class of H^-century Britain. This informative-entertaining purpose is traceable also in the preface to this book; indeed, its introductory part is devoted to the presentation of the "Antiquity of Beggers" and the "Universality of Gypsies", elaborating on details found in previous literature on the underworld. At the end of the preface, however, there are two paragraphs which the author includes to justify his insertion of all those "Proverbs, Jests, Terms and Phrases" which do not belong to the canting language, but which are used by the lower strata of society. Precedents for such mixing of canting terms and colloquial/informal language are found in Plautus and Cervantes, and the use of English words in vulgar contexts is compared to the occasional mingling of noble people with the underworld by means of the following similitude: If some Terms and Phrases of better Quality and Fashion, keep so ill Company, as Tag-Rag and Long-Tail, you are to remember, that it is no less then Customary, for Great Persons a broad to hide themselves often in Disguises among the Gypsies; and even the late L. of Rochester among us, when time was, among other Frolicks, was not ashamed to keep the Gypsies Company.

3

All quotations from this book are taken from the facsimile text reprinted in 1899 by Smith, Kay & Company, London.

62 5.2. B.E.'s terms of the canting crew

The reading of B.E.'s publication confirms the range of registers and varieties taken as the subject of study. For the scope of our analysis a corpus limited to the first letter of the alphabet has been selected and examined. Of the sixty entries listed under the letter A, only nine are to be considered as cant. The attribution of these terms to that special language is facilitated by the abbreviation c. used by the author himself. The limited percentage of the canting expressions (about 15% of the total) confirms the wider perspective of B.E.'s dictionary and his aim of giving a fuller view of the jargon commonly used by the lower strata of English society. Many of the terms listed by B.E. already appeared in previous canting glossaries or underworld literature, such as Abram-cove, Abram-men, Anglers, Autem, Autem mort, some, instead, are new, such as Academy, Accutrements, Ark. While the former terms mainly referred to types of rogues, the latter denote different features of their world: "a Bawdy-house" (Academy), "fine rigging (now) for Men or Women, (formerly) only Trappings for Horse" (Accutrements), "a Boat or Wherry" (Ark). Although not marked as 'canting', many other expressions listed by B.E. refer to the criminal underworld; these often consist of words belonging to the English language, sometimes used in a figurative way. The word Alabaster, for example, is entered for its use for fraudulent purposes and thus commented on: "mixed by all the knavish Perfumers with the Hair-Powder they sell, to make it weigh heavy, being of it self very cheap, that their Gain may be the greater, found destructive to the Hair and Health". Similarly, Allay is used in the specific meaning of "the Embasing of a purer and finer Metal, by mixing it with an inferior or coarser Metal, as of pale Gold with a Silver-Allay, or of deep Gold with an Allay of Copper; also whatever is used to qualify what is bitter or nauseous in Compositions, as gilding of Pills, sweetening of Boluses, or Powedres." Other terms refer to districts inhabited by London's criminals - such as Alsatia ("White Friers"), Alsatia the higher ("the same"), Alsatia the lower ("the Mint in Southwark") and to their inhabitants (Alsatians), or to professions linked to the world of thieves and prostitution. Examples of these include Ambidexter ("one that goes snacks in gaming with both Parties; also a Lawyer that takes Fees of Plaintif and Defendant at once"), Antiquated-Rogue ("Old, out of date, that has forgot or left off his Trade of Thieving, &c. also superannuated, obsolete Customs, or Words, such as are worn out, out of use and Fashion"), and Aunt ("a Bawd"). Many of B.E.'s entries are instead to be considered humorous, informal expressions commonly used to refer to aspects of low-class life. Some of these are terms used to describe people, such as Acteon ("a Cuckold"), Acteon'd ("Cuckolded, or made a Cuckold of'), Addle-pate ("one full of Whimsies and Projects, and as empty of Wit"), Addle-plot (a Martin-mar-all), Airy (Light, brisk, pleasant"), Animal ("a Fool"), Antidote ("a very homely Woman"), Arch-Rogue ("Witty"), Arch-Whore ("Cunning"), Arsworm ("a little diminutive Fellow"), Assuming ("conceited"). Other terms refer to gestures, physical aspect and clothes, such as Antick postures or dresses ("such as are odd, ridiculous and singular, the habits and motions of fools, Zanies, or Merry-andrews, of Mountebanks, with Ribbands, mismatched colours and Feathers") and Auxiliary beauty ("Dress, Paint, Patches, setting of Eye-brows, and licking the Lipps with red").

63

A few expressions denote food and drink, such as Adam's-ale ("Water"), A rack ("an East-Indian Brandy, or strong Spirit drawn from Rice, and (sometimes) Roes of Fish, best when old, much us'd in Punch, the double distill'd Goa most esteem'd") and Aristippus ("a Diet-drink, or Decoction of Sarfa, China, &c. Sold at certain Coffee-houses, and drank as T").

Other aspects of life at that time evoked by B.E.'s terms include parts of the house or other buildings: Antechambers ("forerooms for receiving of Visits, as the back and Drawing Rooms are for Lodgings, anciently called Dining-rooms"), Aloft ("above or over Head; also anciently an Upper-room or Garret, now us'd in Compounds, as Cock-loft, Hay-loft, Sic."), Apartments ("Rooms apart, private Lodgings, inner Chambers, secret and withdrawn from the rest. Recesses of the House opposed to the Antechambers). Some terms have a more general usage and may be employed in various contexts. Examples of these are: Alternali ("altogether"), Ambient-Air ("Air abroad oppos'd to that pent and shut up in Wells, Vaults, Caves &c. Or else the outward Air in the House, oppos'd to that shut up in the Cavities of Vessels, Glasses, Vials, &c."), Air of a Song ("the Tune"), Air of a Face or Picture ("the Configuration and consent of Parts in each"). Apart ("severally, asunder"), Arch-Wag ("Pleasant"). Another group of entries found in the dictionary consists of idiomatic phrases and colloquialisms; the idiomatic phrases listed under the letter A are: the Man is in his Altitudes ("he is Drunk"), in his Armour ("Pot-valiant"), a Man of Assurance ("one that has a stock of Confidence"). An example of colloquialism is Assig ("now us'd for Assignation, an Appointment or meeting"), an abbreviated form, and as such considered to belong to a more informal style.4

5.3. The 'hard words' of B.E.'s dictionary

In analysing the entries of B.E.'s dictionary it is interesting to notice that many of them refer to specialized concepts, and therefore seem to belong more to the 'hard-word' dictionary tradition than to that of canting lexicography. Indeed, several terms are drawn from specific technical or scientific fields, or are of classical origin and refer to learned concepts. Examples of the latter are Academy ("an University, or School to learn Genteleman like Exercises") and Ascendant (Power, Influence). Among the specialized terms we find some that pertain to the legal field, such as Acquests and Acquisitions ("the rights of Fortune purchased by Labour, Arts or Arms, oppos'd to Hereditary and Paternal"). Some of the legal expressions are not reported with their original value but with the colloquial meaning that they have acquired within the

A confirmation of this correlation between abbreviations and non-standard language can be found in Swift's criticism of shortened forms (cf. J. Swift, 'On Corruption of Style', The Tatler, no. 230); examples of what he ironically calls "refinements" and "polite way of writing" are 'phizz' for 'physiognomy', Tiipps' for "hypocondria', 'mob' for 'mobile', 'pozz' for 'positive', 'incog' for 'incognito'. It is interesting to notice that the abbreviation Incog ("for Incognito") appears also in B.E.'s dictionary, along with other shortened forms such as Citt ("for Citizen").

64 underworld. This is the case of Affidavit men, which is listed with the following explanation: "Knights of the Post, Mercenary Swearers for Hire, Inhabitants (formerly) of White Friers, now dispersed". The remaining terms are drawn from other specialized languages, such as that of sailors - cf. Adrift ("Loose", I'll turn ye adrift, I'll prevent ye doing me any harm"), Aft and Abase ("to-wards the Stern, or hinder Part of the Ship"), Ambrol ("Admiral"), Antient ("Ensign, or Flag") -, that of architecture - cf. Anticks ("little Images on Stone, on the outside of old Churches") -, that of military terms - cf. To aim ("to level at a Mark"), Arms, to bear Arms ("a Profession not unbecoming a Gentleman, for Books and Arms are Gentlemens Burdens") -, that of medicine - cf. Antidote ("a medicine against Poyson") and that of natural sciences - cf. Airy ("a Nest of Hawks") and Amphibious Creatures ("of a doubtful kind or of a double Element; as a Bat is between a Bird and a Beast; an Otter between a Beast and a Fish, and a Puffin with the rest of the Sea-Fowl, between Fowl and Fish"). This inclusion of specialized terms may be connected with the wider range of usage of the term 'cant' in that period, which was being employed more and more frequently also to cover the area of hard words. Indeed, as Burke asserts: By then the words 'cant' and 'jargon' were employed still more widely to refer to the terms of art' or technical words' used by different occupational groups. [...] Swift wrote in 1704 of 'the cant or jargon of the trade1; Addison, in 1712, of 'the cant of particular trades'; and Bullock, in 1717, of 'the jargon of the law". (Burke 1995: 3)

Analysing the specialized terms included in B.E.'s publication, however, one may notice that several of them are introduced to complete with the technical value the colloquial or canting meaning with which such terms had been entered in the dictionary (this is the case, for example, of Academy and Antidote) or to insert the noun which is then employed in a colloquial idiom, as in the following example: Ascendant, Power, Influence, as, he has the Ascendant over him, or an Hank upon him; also the Horoscope, or point of the Ecliptic that rises at one's Nativity.

As can be seen from this example, a learned term such as Ascendant is mentioned here so as to introduce the meaning that it commonly has in the language of fortune-telling, an activity strictly connected with one of the many 'tribes' of the underworld, i.e. that of gipsies.

5.4. The variety of B.E.'s entries

As has been seen, the fields from which B.E. draws his entries are quite varied and range from canting to colloquial to specialized registers. However, in his dictionary he does not give a systematic specification of all the contexts of usage of his different expressions; on the contrary, he very rarely mentions their range of use. Indeed, the only abbreviation that he uses in his definitions is c., indicating canting terms. As regards the other registers, in the sixty words of our corpus we find a reference to only one other field, that of nautical

65 terms, which is specified in the three cases of I'll turn ye adrift ("a Tar-phrase; I'll prevent ye doing me any harm"), Ambrol ("among the Tarrs for admiral") and Antient ("at sea, for Ensign, or Flag"). If we look at the rest of the dictionary, we can find very few other specifications. There are some more terms whose nautical origin is clearly stated, such as Land-lopers or Landlubbers ("Fresh-water Seamen so called by the true Tarrs"), Pinch-gut-hall ("a noted House at Milend, so Nicknam'd by the Tarrs, who were half Starved in an East-India Voiage, by their then Commander, who Built (at his return) that famous Fabrick, and (as they say) with what he Pinch'd out of their Bellies") and Pinch-gut-money ("allow'd by the King to the Seamen, that Serve on Bord the Navy Royal, when their Provision falls Short; also in long Voyages when they are forced to Drink Water instead of Beer"). The rare further specifications that appear in B.E.'s dictionary referring to particular jobs or sectors of usage are those concerning carters (e.g. Hut, "from; a term much us'd by Carters, &c."), lawyers and judges (e.g. Fishing Bill, "in Chancery, to make what Discoveries may be") and jailers (e.g. Milch-kine, "a Term us'd by Goalers, when their Prisoners will bleed freely to have some Favor, or be at large"). Another specification made by B.E. in the definition of his terms concerns the humorous or derisive purpose for which they are used. Instances of such specification are: Carrot-pated ("used in derision"), Clicket ("Copulation of Foxes, and sometimes, used waggishly for that of Men and Women"), Gullet ("a Derisory Term for the Throat, from Gula") and Whistle ("a derisory Term for the Throat"). In other cases the author indicates the regional usage of certain entries. The following are a few examples from the dictionary: Cameronians ("(in Scotland) great outward Zealots, and very squeemish Precisians"), Cant ("(Cheshire) to grow Strong and Lusty"), Clan ("Family, Tribe, Faction, Party in Scotland chiefly, but now any where else"), Cockney ("(in London) also one ignorant in Country Matters"), Culp at the Gutts ("(Suffolk) a hearty kick at the Belly"). The specification of the geographical origin is also made for foreign expressions included in the dictionary, such as in the case of Cannikin ("(among the Dutch) a little Kan with a Spout to pour out the Wine or Beer, making it Froth"). The identification of these specifications enables us to trace the wider range of usage that B.E. has taken into consideration in compiling his dictionary, which includes not only those terms which he considers canting, but also expressions derived from other registers and varieties of the English language. If we compare our corpus with the entries under the letter A of two other dictionaries of the second half of the seventeenth century - Blount's (1656) and Coles' (1676) -, we may appreciate B.E.'s innovative approach even better. Of B.E.'s sixty entries only thirteen appear in Blount's dictionary. As the latter is a hard-word dictionary, it is not at all surprising that the terms that coincide are all specialized or learned: Academy, Acquests, Acteoned, Alabaster, Altitude, Ambidexter, Amphibious, Animal, Antichambre, Antidote, Antiquary, Arke, Ascendant. Moreover, in Blount's dictionary most of them only provide the standard definition; only for two (acteoned and animal), besides the standard meaning do we find the colloquial equivalent also reported in B.E.'s dictionary. However, when the informal meaning is given by Blount, it is always mentioned after the standard one, the reverse of what is done in B.E.'s dictionary (cf. Academy, Antidote), where the learned equivalent is sometimes even omitted (cf. Acteon'd, Alabaster, Altitude, Ambidexter, Animal, Ark). As one would expect, abbreviations are not reported by Blount; for example, the term Assignation

66 appears in its full form in his dictionary and not in its shortened form Assig; similarly, B.E.'s term Anticks is listed as Antike worke by Blount. If we take Coles' dictionary into consideration, we find more terms (fifteen) in common with B.E.'s. The larger number may be explained by the fact that Coles also includes cant expressions in his publication. However, only two of B.E.'s nine canting entries are present in Coles' book (Abram-cove anáAutem), which confirms B.E.'s great contribution to the canting lexicographical tradition. If we then take into consideration the other terms that are common to the two dictionaries, we can see that they all belong to the 'hard word' category: Academy, Acquests, Aft, Airy, Alabaster, Allay, Altitudes, Ambidexter, Amuse, Anti-chamber, Antidote, Aristippus, Ark. It is interesting to notice, however, that in the case of words that can be used in an informal register (such as Academy, Airy, Antidote) Coles always provides the standard equivalent and never the colloquial meaning, while B.E. always provides the colloquial or canting meaning of all, and ignores the standard or learned equivalent of the following: Altitudes, Ambidexter, Aristippus, Ark. As in Blount's dictionary, Assignation is reported by Coles in its full form, while its abbreviation Assig is omitted.

5.5 . A dictionary of'popular language'

The analysis carried out so far has highlighted B.E.'s intention of providing his dictionary with a wider coverage than the original one. In his search for new terms the author has collected not only canting terms, but also expressions derived from other registers of the English language being used at his time in the London area by members of the lower strata of British society. These other lexical elements include colloquialisms and informal phrases, specialized terms and regional expressions. In doing so, B.E. has therefore behaved like a modern sociolinguist, identifying a specific area (London) and a specific group of language users (the members of the underworld), noting down all the words and expressions that he has come across in that field with the meanings they have in that context, and integrating them - at least as regards canting elements - with the terms which had been included in previous glossaries and other publications. In this way B.E. has identified and presented the language of a 'subculture' (Maurer 1964), i.e. of a group of individuals who belong to the same social class, who share certain common attitudes, associations, behaviour patterns and who make use of common speech patterns, thus representing a cohesive social microsystem that has its own cultural values and linguistic habits which differ from those accepted in the macrosystem and commonly considered as standard. While in the collection of canting terms, hard words and regional terms 3 much had been done in the previous decades, as regards colloquialisms and informal expressions B.E. proved to be a great innovator. His dictionary, indeed, covers an area which is wider than the one traditionally established for the canting language, an area which had not

5

As regards the collection and explanation of words and expressions typical of specific geographical areas of seventeenth-century Great Britain cf., in particular, Ray (1674).

67 previously been defined and explored in the English tongue6. The interest in this new concept was not to disappear in the following decades; on the contrary, it was to be officially established in one of the most important 'canting' dictionaries of the eighteenthcentury, i.e. Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. However, in B.E.'s case the use of the expression 'vulgar tongue' would not be appropriate, as his dictionary does not include all the vulgarisms and taboo words which instead are listed in Grose's. The term 'slang' would have to be discarded for the same reason (cf. The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of this word: "The special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type"). A more appropriate expression might be 'popular language', in which the adjective 'popular' should be interpreted according to the following definition provided by The Oxford English Dictionary: "Pertaining to the people of lowly birth, belonging to the commonalty or populace, plebeian". The innovativeness of B.E.'s approach has not always been appreciated; indeed, his insertion of other expressions apart from canting ones has sometimes been criticized. Noyes, for example, interpreted it as merely a way of enlarging the vocabulaiy included in that publication: Like Head, also, B.E. still found his actual canting material too slight to fill a book and resorted to padding in the form of the inclusion of many slang and specialized terms. (Noyes 1941/1991:

222) The only praise attributed to B.E. in studies concerning canting lexicography has been expressed for his increasing the collection and definition of canting vocabulary7. B.E.'s other great merit, however, consists in having collected a significant number of terms being used by the lower strata of British society at the end of the seventeenth-century, thus presenting a picture of the 'popular speech' used in London at his time.

6 7

The term 'slang' is not attested in The Oxford English Dictionary before 1756. Partridge acknowledges the wider scope of B.E.'s dictionary when he states that "It is thus not only much the most complete glossary of cant to have appeared by the end of the seventeenth century but also the first dictionary to record ordinary slang as such" (1970: 42); he, however, does not seem to perceive the importance of the novelty of this widening of B.E.'s entries as later he refers to it as a "dictionary of all sorts of slang" (1970: 179). Also Beier identifies this volume as "the progenitor of a distinguished line of dictionaries of popular speech" (1995: 69), but he mainly devotes his analysis to the canting terms listed in B.E.'s publication.

Chapter 6

The Canting Component of The Ladies Dictionary

The Ladies Dictionary is ail interesting publication which appeared in 1694, and whose authorship has puzzled many a scholar. The only mention of the compiler of the work can be found in the dedicatory letter, signed "N.H.". These initials had already been used by the publisher of The Ladies Dictionary, John Dunton, on the title page of two other works printed by him, that is, The Compleat Tradesman and The Pleasant Art of Moneycatching. As can be seen from the titles, these however concerned economic topics and were therefore very different in their subject from those dealt with in the new publication. Not even the review which appeared in The Athenian Mercury to present The Ladies Dictionary is of much help in solving the mystery, as the writer does not disclose the real identity of the compiler, but merely extols his merits in very general terms: As for the Author of the Book, I know him not, but whoever he is, he seems to be cut out on purpose for such a Business, for one may find him quite through the Book to be a Man of great Experience in Female Affairs, and very well vers'd in the deep, hidden and profound Mysteries of Love Intreagues, Amours, &c. And he hath done it with so much Wit, with so smart and feeling an Air, whether he Commends the Sex, tells a Story, or reproves a Vice, as shews him to have Commenc'd Mr. of Arts that way." (20th March, 1694)

The printer of The Closet of Beauty (1925) suggests a possible identification of the author of The Ladies Dictionary with Henry Nicholas. Noyes (1941/1991: 286), instead, ascribes the work to a group of compilers employed by John Dunton. Parks (1976: 61) agrees with Noyes' opinion, convinced that "the initials N.H. which appear under the dedication of the work conceal the fact that The Ladies Dictionary was yet another project of Dunton's literary assembly-line". Support to the hypothesis of a collective writing enterprise may derive from the work itself, as many of the entries of the dictionary are not inserted in the correct alphabetical order and many words are listed more than once in the text. Indeed each letter of the dictionary looks like a mere juxtaposition of blocks of entries taken from various sources, without any succeeding intervention to rearrange them in the right alphabetical order or combine the various definitions of the same entry into a unified and coherent single article. The letter A, for example, is composed of the following blocks of entries1: Abigail to Azubah, Abdona to Armenias, the long articles about Apparel, or the Ladies DressingRoom and Anger in Ladies, the blocks from Ability to Athenais, from Angela de Nugarolis to Aurea Behn, from Affinity to Aretaphila, from Abia to Autonoe, from Agetus to Aristoclea, and finally from Ada to Ausonius, with the insertion of several interpolations within these blocks.

The copy examined here is the one held at the British Library in London.

69

Moreover, many entries recur in more than one block - such as Agatha, Agnes, Agnodice, Anchoress, Atalanta, Aurora - and are therefore explained twice or even three times. It is evident that the work is the result of a process of assembly of various pieces provided by different compilers; the absence of a final systematizing action is probably due to the haste with which the volume was produced and to the huge number of publications printed by Dunton in that period.2

6.1. The aims of The Ladies

Dictionary

The principal aim of this dictionary is specified on its title page, where it is made clear that it has been compiled as "General Entertainment for the Fair Sex". In the dedicatory letter the author also extols the originality of his publication by adding that a similar enterprise had never been attempted before: Indeed many Learned Writters there be, who have wrote excellent well of some Particular Subjects herein Treated of, but as there is not one of them hath written upon all of them, so there are some things Treated of in this Dictionary that I have not met with in any Language. (1694: Dedication)

The introductory part makes it clear that the work has been conceived for reference purposes, "as a Secret Oracle, to Consult in all difficult Cases" (1694: Dedication). Indeed, as the analysis of the contents of The Ladies Dictionary shows, rather than a dictionary this volume can be considered an encyclopaedia, because in it one can find not only definitions and etymologies, but also anecdotes, biographies, historical accounts, short poems, letters and commentaries of various kinds. In publishing a work of this nature, Dunton seems to have followed the increasing encyclopaedic tendency of his time3, which had started in n^-century hard-word dictionaries with the inclusion of a wide range of lengthy and detailed articles as explanations for difficult words and specialized concepts or as an illustration of the lives and works of famous literary and historical figures. The adoption of the principle of universality in word-collection which lies at the basis of this lexicographical tradition also explains the great length of the explanatory passages accompanying various entries of The Ladies Dictionary, which in many cases take up several pages. The reading public for which the volume has been written is very wide, and the work is meant as "a Compleat Directory to the Female-Sex in all Relations, Companies, Conditions and States of Life; even from Child-hood down to Old-Age, and from the Lady at the Court, to the Cook-maid in the Country" (1694: Dedication). The inclusion of all the representatives of the female sex - from all social classes and professional fields - is the great novelty of this work, as is the desire to address it exclusively to them.

2

3

The advertisement published in The Compleat Library (July - November 1693) mentions sixtytwo books as "lately printed for John Dunton", as well as nine more being printed. For an analysis of the growth of the encyclopaedic features of late 1 î^-century and early 18thcentury English dictionaries cf. Hayashi (1978: Ch.3).

70 Indeed, several previous dictionaries had mentioned women as part of their possible addressees, but a female reading public had commonly been mentioned only in connection with other groups of semi-educated readers, such as young students and persons ignorant of the learned languages. An example of this attitude can be seen in Robert Cawdrey's words, which testify to the writing of his Table AlphabeticalI "for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons" (1604/1966: title page) The idea of publishing an encyclopaedic work intended exclusively for a female reading public may have been suggested to the printer by the many questions submitted by women to The Athenian Mercury 4 The latter was a periodical published by John Dunton in the last decade of the seventeenth century, which grew more and more dependent on women's favour for its popularity, to the point of becoming "virtually a ladies' magazine" (Stearns 1930: 45). Dunton was ready to interpret the great need felt by women to have reading materials dealing with feminine topics and appealing to their sentimental tastes, a need also responsible for the relevant growth of the novel of manners in that same period (cf. Morgan 1911) and the appearance of specific periodicals aimed at a female reading public, such as The Ladies Mercury. The publication of The Ladies Dictionary was very successful, also thanks to the vast advertising campaign carried out by Dunton in the pages of his periodicals, and in particular The Athenian Mercury and The Ladies Mercury. The advertising campaign started as early as a year before; indeed, already the issue of 11th March 1693 of The Athenian Mercury announced the printer's intention of publishing a volume about "Love, Marriage, the Behaviour, Dress and Humours of the Female Sex" and asked "all Ladies and Batchellors that have anything very Curious by 'em upon any of the aforementioned Heads" to send their contributions to be included in the new work. The issue of 20th March 1694 of The Athenian Mercury was devoted entirely to reviewing Dunton's new volume, urging the female readers to buy it in a very explicit way, as can be seen from the following extract: I cannot see how they [women] can be without it, in all their concerns of Business, Life, Houses and Conversation [...] and besides it is written in a smart, pleasant and witty Stile, and with so flowing an Eloquence, that you would always believe the Author capable of saying much more upon a Subjet than he do's.

6.2. The main sources

As regards the sources of this work, the author ascribes some of the information provided in it to his "Own Experience in Love Affairs" (1694: Dedication) or to "those Ladies, who by their Generous imparting to [him] their Manuscripts, have furnisht [him] with several hundred Experiments and Secrets in Domestick Affairs, Beautifying, Preserving,

4

The original title of the periodical was The Athenian Gazette. With the second issue Dunton changed it into The Athenian Mercury.

71 Candying, Physick, Chirurgeiy, &c. Proper for [his] Work" (1694: Dedication).5 He also admits having "consulted all Books [he] could meet with on those Subjects, to Compleat [his] own Experiences" (1694: Dedication), although he explicitly identifies his sources only in "Dr. Blancards, Mr. Blounts, and other Dictionaries, of note" (1694: Dedication). An examination of the book confirms the author's great indebtedness to previous publications, whose range and number is quite vast. Two of these sources have been clearly specified by N.H. himself in the surnames of Blancard and Blount. The former corresponds to Steven Blancard (or Blankaert), author of Lexicon medicum grceco-latinum, translated into English as A Physical Dictionary (1683), from which several medical entries have been transferred into The Ladies Dictionary. As regards Blount, entire blocks of entries have been taken from his Glossographia (1656) and inserted with no significant modification into the work published by Dunton. For example, in the letter A of The Ladies Dictionary the entries from Affinity to Aretaphila are taken almost verbatim from Blount, with the interpolation of only three entries (Address, Abortion and Amnion) taken from other works. In the introductory section N.H. mentions other dictionaries from which he has borrowed some lexicographic materials. One of these is certainly Coles' An English Dictionary, from which whole lists of entries have been taken (cf., for example, the block from Abia to Autonoe in the letter A of The Ladies Dictionary). Another dictionary from which N.H. has drawn parts of his materials is The Fop-Dictionary appended to John Evelyn and his daughter Maiy's Mundus Muliebris: or, The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlock'd (1690). The Fop-Dictionary contains various terms - mainly of French origin referring to the field of cosmetics. In this case, however, N.H. does not insert the various entries of his source under the different letters of his own dictionary, but groups them all together under two common entries: Apparel, or the Ladies Dressing-Room and Appurtenances in Dressing, &c. Other sources of The Ladies Dictionary - identified by Noyes (1942) - are: Charles Estienne's Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum, Poeticum (in its 1686 edition, revised by Nicholas Lloyd), Louis Morery's Grand Dictionaire Historique (in its 1691 edition, revised by Le Clerc), Thomas Heywood's General History of Women ( 1624, 1657), the anonymous Mundus Foppensis (1691), Thomas Fuller's The Holy State and the Profane State (1642), the anonymous The Ladies Calling (1667), George Savile's A Lady's New Year's Gift (1688), Robert Codrington's The Second Part of Youth's Behaviour, Or Decency in Conversation amongst Women (1672), the standard etiquette book The Rules of Civility (1671, English version of Antoine de Courtin's Nouveau Traité de la Civilité), Robert May's Accomplished Cook (1678), John Shirley's The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities (1691), Hannah Wooley's The Gentlewoman's Companion (1675), the anonymous Marriage Promoted (1690) and (for a few words only) The English Gentlewoman by Richard Brathwait (1631). Much of the material is also drawn from various issues of two periodicals published by John Dunton and strictly connected with the interests of a female public, that is, The Athenian Mercury and The Ladies Mercury.

This featuring of real or imaginary contributions by the public could also be interpreted as a "familiar advertising device [...] sponsored by the clever bookseller, John Dunton" (Stames and Noyes 1946/1991: 258).

72

6.3. The contents of The Ladies

Dictionary

The main topics dealt with in The Ladies Dictionary are anticipated in the Dedication prefixed to the work. One important category is represented by the lives of famous female figures: So that you'll find here at one view, the whole Series and Order of all the most Heroick and Illustrious Women of all times, from the first dawning of the World to this present Age, of all degrees, from the Imperial Diadem, to the Shepherds Crook, of all Regions and Climats, from the Spicy East, to the Golden West, of all Faiths, whether Jews, Ethnicks, or Christians, (and particularly an Account of those Women Martyrs that suffer'd in Queen Mary's days: And in the West in 85: And of all Eminent Ladies, that have dyU in England for these last fifty years) of all Arts and Sciences, both the graver, and more polite; of all Estates, Virgins, Wives and Widows; of all Complexions and Humours, the Fair, the Foul, the Grave, the Witty, the Reserv'd, the familiar, the Chast, the Wanton." (1694: Dedication)

In listing all these types of female figures N.H. clearly anticipates the encyclopaedic character of his work. Another component of his work is identified in "the lively Ideas of all laudable Qualities whatsoever, suitable to [Ladies] in all Callings and Conditions". A further element to be found in this dictionary consists in "the true Interpretation, and Etymology of Womens Names". The wide range of fields covered by the various entries of The Ladies Dictionary can be perceived even by means of a brief analysis of the words listed under one of its letters. Under the letter A, for example, many articles are devoted to the presentation of famous female figures appearing in Biblical texts (such as Abigail and Anne), in mythological or classical works (such as Alceste, Amazons, Andromache, Andromeda), in historical contexts (Agrippina, Adelais) or in literary circles (Anne Askew, Anne Broadstreet, Aurea Behn). Another component concerns the etymology of a few women's names (such as Agatha, Agnes or Anne), or the meaning of some words of foreign origin: cf. Areta ("Virtue, Gr.") and Aimie ("beloved, from aimié. Fr"). Other terms refer to members of particular occupations or female nouns, e.g. Anchorette ("one that lives solitarily. Gr."). Many entries concern advice and moral judgements regarding Artificial Beauty as well as objects commonly used by women, especially in the fields of beauty and clothing, such as the entries for Amulet ("a ball about the neck to keep from Poison or Witchcraft"), Annulet ("a Ring, or any thing like a Ring"), Apparel, or the Ladies Dressing-Room (with a description of several ornaments used by seventeenth-centuiy ladies "for setting out the shape and proportion of the Body, and rendring the Fabrick of mortality more Airy and Charming"). Other articles deal with female passions and feelings (such as Anger in Ladies, &c. discommendable and hurtful, and by what means to be avoided and remedied), or characteristics of a woman's body (e.g. Age), personality (e.g. Ability, In some Women, why Extraordinary) or behaviour (e.g. Adultery and Uncleanness), and provide examples from history or mythology. Some words are of the 'hard word' type, as they belong to a learned register (such as Affinity) or to a specialized field, as is the case of legal terms (e.g. Alimony) or medical concepts (e.g. Abortion, Amnion, Assestrix). Another specific register represented in this dictionary is that of canting terms (cf. Au tern Morts), which will be analyzed in a detailed way in the following section.

73

6.4. The canting component

The inclusion of canting terms may be explained by N.H.'s intention expressed in his Dedication to his female readers to "lay open the frailties of [their] Sex". His justification for this choice is that even this component will not cause discredit on women, but on the contrary will highlight their virtues: Because I can produce nothing out of History, to the Disgrace of the bad and vicious, which adds not to the Honour of the good and vertuous." (1694: Dedication)

The canting terms included in The Ladies Dictionary are twenty-eight (cf. Appendix 4). However, two of these (Blower and Shop-Lift) appear twice, and one is even listed under three different entries (Doxie, Doxy, Prostitute Doxies). This confirms the method followed in the compilation of the whole work, which mainly consisted in the assembly of various materials taken from different sources, without any systematization carried out on the part of the author(s) or printer. Most of the terms are taken from Richard Head's The Canting Academy; half of them are taken from the 'Alphabetical Canting Vocabulary', which consists of two parts: 'Canting before the English' and 'English before the Canting', the second being a reversal of the first. The compiler(s) of The Ladies Dictionary clearly consulted both parts, as some entries (such as Blower, Culsniches, Famble-Cheats, Gybe, Kinchin, Queer Mort, Stall Whimper) are taken from the first, while others (such as Cully, Kidknappers, Rum Mort, Shop-Lift) are drawn in reversed form from the second. The other half of the terms borrowed from The Canting Academy are taken from the part headed Ά Character or Description of the Roguish Professors of that mysterious and Diabolical Gibberish called Canting', which presents the various figures belonging to the different 'orders' of the underworld. Another important source of canting terms is Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary, a work from which several other entries of The Ladies Dictionary have been borrowed. One term (Doxy) is taken from Thomas Blount's Glossographia, as part of one of the many blocks of text transferred from that volume into Dunton's publication. No terms have instead been taken from B.E.'s canting dictionary, which strengthens the hypothesis that this undated volume had not yet been published in 1694, year when The Ladies Dictionary was printed. As regards the terms borrowed from Blount and Coles, the definitions found in them are very short and have been copied verbatim by the compilées) of The Ladies Dictionary. The definitions borrowed from The Canting Academy, instead, have sometimes been submitted to alterations or reductions. The most frequent case of modification coincides with a sort of censoring intervention, by means of which obscene or inconvenient words have been substituted by more acceptable ones. Here is an example: Blower, One mans particular Wench. (The Canting Academy) Blower, one Mans particular Lass. (The Ladies Dictionary)

In other cases, words considered inappropriate have been omitted. For instance, in the definition of Autem Morts, the following sentence has been deleted: "talk to him of a Certificate, and you were as good call him Son of a Whore". The word 'whore' is subjected

74 to censure also on other occasions. For example, Head's entry Bawd, Pimp and Whore becomes Bawd, Pimp, &c. in The Ladies Dictionary. Moreover, in the definition of these terms there are other instances of lexical modification: 'Leachery' becomes 'Folly' and 'Snicking' is turned into 'Money', while the following sentence is totally omitted, due to its too explicit reference to the act of prostitution: "and that point by which she indeavors to set off her bad Commodity will in a little time totally ruine". Another case of suppression of the reference to a morally comdemnable practice can be seen in the reformulation of the definition of the word Dells: Dells are young bucksome Wenches, ripe, and prone to Venery, but have not yet lost their Maiden-heads, which is commonly done first by the Uprightman, and then they are free for any of the Brotherhood. (The Canting Academy) Dells, are young bucksom Wenches, ripe, and prone to Venery, but have not yet been debauch'd. (The Ladies Dictionary)6

As regards the semantic fields to which the canting terms inserted in The Ladies Dictionary belong, the vast majority refers to names denoting female figures of the underworld: Autem Morts, Bawd, Blower, Dells, Doxie, Kynchin Morts, Night Walkers, Queer Mort, Rum Mort, Shop-Lift, Strowling Morts. Some (Kidknappers, Mumpers) are terms referring both to women and men, while others (Cully, Huff, Patri co's) only have a male referent, which may denote a certain degree of inaccuracy in selecting the entries. Indeed, Huff may have been taken into consideration because of its relation to the world of prostitution; Patrico's instead may have been chosen due to its connection with marriage, a criterion which also explains the inclusion of the two terms Kinchin and Stall Whimper pertaining to children. Further canting terms refer to clothes, such as Belly-Cheat, Famble-Cheats and Peeper, although others referring to women's clothes listed in The Canting Academy (such as Calle, Drawers, Stampers, Stock-Drawers and Togeman) have not been borrowed. The remaining canting terms appearing in The Ladies Dictionary denote objects or expressions used either for criminal or general purposes by the membèrs of the underworld, and the random selection of these out of the many listed in Richard Head's work cannot be explained by any clear and consistent criterion. Also the various female canting figures examined by Richard Head have not been taken into thorough consideration by the compiler(s) of The Ladies Dictionary, as some (such as Glymmerers and Bawdy-Baskets) have been ignored, although they are dealt with in a very detailed way in The Canting Academy.

6

The word 'wench' has not been substituted here, probably due to the compilation of this entry by a different person or to the inconsistent policy to be found also in other parts of the work. Indeed, such inconsistency can also be seen in the adoption of the word 'whore', which - as seen above - has been deleted or substituted in some cases, but has remained unaltered in others.

75 6.5. Conclusion

Although The Ladies Dictionary has received slight and usually negative consideration on the part of lexicographical scholars 7 , the examination of the various features of this publication has shown the increasing importance of the female reading public in the seventeenth century and the very wide range of topics that attracted their interests. In particular, the analysis of the canting component of The Ladies Dictionary has highlighted the relevance that this aspect had acquired also for the 'fair sex' and has thus confirmed the great interest in this specific lexical branch felt not only by the groups strictly connected with the underworld, but by all the different social strata and economic classes existing in Britain at that time.

7

Collison (1966: 96), for example, has expressed this brief and not very enthusiastic comment about The Ladies Dictionary: The eccentric English bookseller John Dunton (1659-1733) issued in 1694 his Ladies' dictionary which, apart from its being addressed to a section of the public that had been overlooked since the days of the Abbess Herrad, had no other merit. At the end of her critical evaluation of this work, Noyes (1942: 145) expresses the following comment: It is regrettable that the work drew so heavily on second-hand material and that, as one of Dunton's "six hundred projects," it was hurried through the press without the rudimentary blessings of systematic arrangement and some show of eclecticism.

Chapter 7

Alexander Smith's Thieves New Canting Dictionary

Alexander Smith published The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men, Foot-Pads and Other Thieves, and Murderers in 1714. This book represents the first notable collection of rogue biographies in English, although the work itself does not appear to be very original, as most of its contents are drawn from earlier publications about the lives of well-known thieves and murderers.1 The part of this work which will be mainly analyzed here is the cant dictionary included in the first volume of the fifth edition, which was published in 1719 with the title A Compleat History of the Lives and Robberies of the most Notorious Highway-Men, Foot-Pads, Shop-Lifts, and Cheats. Other parts which will be taken into consideration are 'The Thieves Grammar', 'The Thieves Key' and 'The Thieves Exercise', which appear at the end of the third volume of this fifth edition, issued in 1720.2 Not very much is known about Alexander Smith. From the title pages of his works we can notice that he published them with the word 'Captain' prefixed to his name, but according to Stephen and Lee (1921-22, XVIII: 420) - "he is known exclusively for the compilations executed for the booksellers during the reign of George I, which suggest that he was better known as a frequenter of police-courts and taverns than in military circles." Smith also prides himself on his military title elsewhere in his works, as in the preface to the second volume of the first edition of The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men, where he confesses his failure to complete a religious education in favour of a militaiy career: But by the Way, I must acquaint my readers, that the Publisher tells me, those that don't know me, enquire mightily who the Author Capt. Alexander Smith is; and those that know me, wonder at my Throwing off the Gown to take up the Sword. To which I have no more to say, than that for them who are not of my Acquaintance, I would not have 'em ask after me any more than I do after them; and as for leaving the Study of Divinity to follow a Military Employment, I am not the first; since Mr Walker, the Governour of London-Deny in Ireland, left the Pulpit in the Time of the Late War there, to serve his King & Country in the Camp. ('1714, Π: v-vi).3

This opinion is confirmed by Chandler:

2

3

[Smith's work] comprises the information afforded by whatever criminal pamphlets and last confessions had then been published. Moreover, after the fashion of the "Histoire Générale des Larrons" it contains most of the tricks presented in jestbooks and picaresque literature, assigning to real people the stock incidents of fiction. (Chandler 1907,1: 172) Both the dictionary and the 'grammar' were re-issued separately: the former in 1719 and the latter - according to Alston (1971: 57) - probably in 1720. The texts of the various editions of Alexander Smith's work examined here are those available at the British Library in London.

77 7.1. The first two editions

Previous studies on the canting component of The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men have merely taken into consideration the fifth edition of this work, although the texts of previous editions also show the presence of several terms belonging to the language of the underworld. Our perusal of the first two editions of Alexander Smith's work has revealed not only the use of such terminology, but also an emphasis placed by the author on this linguistic aspect. Indeed, in his preface to the first volume of the second edition Smith prides himself on having taken "no small Pains to collect the Lives of these sinful Wretches", and also for "being very punctual [...] in decyphering their canting Language" ( 2 1714,1: iii). Moreover, the author makes frequent use of canting terms in order to make his narration of the lives of the various rogues more realistic. In mentioning such terms, however, he is very careful to specify their meaning in the standard language, as can be seen from the following examples: Their Mort, that is to say, their Strumpet or Trull (in the canting Tongue) snatch'd 'em up. ( 2 1714,1: 79) The Cat [gave] the Buffer, that is their canting Name for a Dog, two or three Scratches on the Nose. ( 2 1714,1: 167) His chiefest Dexterity lay in robbing Waggons, which, in their canting Language they call

Tumblers. (21714,1: 195) Many more canting terms are explained in the text by means of a synonym, as in the case of Buttock and File (Π714, II: 244), Dub, Cove ( 2 1714, I: 194-5), Chiving, Chive, Prancer ( 2 1714, I: 197), black Dogs, George Plateroon ( 2 1714, I: 205), Mill, Prigs ( 2 1714,1: 242-3), Diving ( 2 1714, I: 252), Sneaking-budge, Drag and filing a Cly ( 2 1714, I: 255). In some instances, canting terms are inserted in the text with no standard equivalent, and their meaning is left for the readers themselves to deduce from the context. For example, the meaning of 'mercenary false swearer' implied in the expression Knights of the Post is thus introduced by Smith: To this, his Council repiyd, That when they paid the Money, the Bond could not be found, whereupon the Defendant took a general Release for Payment thereof; which being produc'd in Court, and two Knights of the Post swearing to it, the Plaintiff was cast. Which putting Tom Sharp into a great Passion, he cry'd to his Companions, as he was coming through Westminster-

Hall, Was ever such Rogues seen in this World before, to swear they paid that which they never borrow'd? ( 2 1714,1: 204)

Other terms inserted in this way are: Buttock and Twang, Cui, Cully, Spark ( 2 1714,1: 165) and Whittington's College ( 2 1714,1: 201). Apart from this random use of canting terms, on one occasion - when describing the life of one of the rogues - Alexander Smith introduces a long list of expressions commonly used by members of the underworld, and for each expression he provides its meaning in standard English; this short dictionary includes the following words: Autem, Belly-cheat, Borde, Bube, Buffer, Cokir, Cuffin, Canke, Cannakin, Deuse-avil, Ferme, Flag, Glymmer,

78

Gar4, Gybe, Harmanbeck, Jigger, Kinchin, Libege, Make, Nab, Prat, Quarron, Ruffin, Swag, Slat, Trine, Win, Yarum, Bite the Peter or Roger, Tip me my Earnest, Pike on the Leen5, Plant your Whids, Stow your Whids, The Mort tip'd me a Wink, Tip the Cole to Adam Tyler. This list of words and expressions is not the result of Alexander Smith's own research, but is drawn mainly from Richard Head's The English Rogue (1665), as most of the definitions provided and the incorrect spellings of some entries correspond exactly. Also the canting terms found in other parts of The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men have usually been borrowed from previous works; the sources, however, are not only dictionaries or books of lexicographical interest, but also publications dealing with the lives of rogues. An example of this can be found in the term Wipes, which had previously been used with the semantic value of 'handkerchief in Memoirs of John Hall (41708). There are rare instances, however, in which Alexander Smith reports canting expressions which had not appeared in previous publications. This is the case of the noun Lobs, whose semantic value of 'trunks, boxes' is made clear by the author himself: He went upon other Lays, as taking Lobs from behind Ratlers6, that's to say, Trunks or Boxes from behind Coaches. (21714,1: 242)

7.2. The fifth edition

The fifth edition of The History of the Lives of the most Notorious Highway-Men presents a few interesting additions to the previous issues of the same work: a canting dictionary is prefixed to the first volume; moreover, a third volume is added, containing not only more lives of rogues, but also other sections dedicated to the language of the underworld, such as 'The Thieves Grammar', 'The Thieves Key' and 'The Thieves Exercise'. The purpose of the canting dictionary is made clear by the author himself, who specifies that this part of the first volume "explains the most mysterious Words, newest Terms, significant Phrases, and proper Idioms, used at this present Time among our modern Villains" (51719, I: Preface). The motivation provided for this addition is the traditional one: "whereby Travellers may oftentimes save both their Lives and Money." (51719: Preface) As can be noticed from the former of the two quotations, Smith insists on the novelty of his list, which is said to include the "newest Terms [...] used at this present Time among our modern Villains" (our italics). Another quality that he extols is the vastness of his material, which - according to the author - is "much augmented". This claim, however, appears to be unjustified, as the dictionary contains fewer entries than previous canting dictionaries; indeed the number of headwords is 206, certainly fewer than those listed in Richard Head's The Canting Academy or B.E.'syl New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient 4 5 6

This is a misprint of the word Gan. This expression contains a misprint; the correct expression is Pike on the Been. Ratlers, instead, had already appeared in previous canting dictionaries and publications about the underworld.

79 and Modern of the Canting Crew. A quantitative analysis of 'The Thieves New Canting Dictionary' confirms that all of its lexemes are to be found in B.E.'s publication; the latter, however, contains several other terms which are not listed in Smith's. A comparison of the definitions found in these three canting dictionaries reveals a very close similarity between those reported by B.E. and by Smith7, with identical versions in some cases as can be seen from the following examples: Adam-tiler, c. a Pickpocket's Camerade, who receives Stolen Money or Goods, and scowers off with them. (B.E.) Adam-Tiler, a Pick-Pocket's Comrade, who receives stoln Money or goods, and scours off with 'em. (Smith) Affidavit men, Knights of the Post, Mercenary Swearers for Hire, Inhabitants (formerly) of White Friers, now dispersed. (B.E.) Affidavit-men, Knights of the Post, mercenary Swearers for Hire, Inhabitants formerly of WhiteFryers, now dispers'd. (Smith) At times Smith slightly alters B.E.'s definitions - usually to shorten them - as can be seen in the following case: Autem mort, c. a married-woman, also the Twenty fourth Order of the Canting Tribe, Travelling, Begging (and often Stealing) about the Country, with one Child in Arms another on Back, and (sometimes) leading a third in the Hand. (B.E.) Autem-Mort, a marry'd Woman, also that Tribe of Beggars travelling, begging, and often stealing, with one Child in arms, another at the Back, and sometimes leading a Third in the Hand. (Smith) Besides simplifying the original definitions, Smith often leaves out other parts of the texts that he finds in B.E.'s entries - such as etymological information - as the following quotations show: Froe, c. for Ürowe, (Dutch) a Wife, Mistress, or Whore. (B.E.) Froe, a Wife, Mistress, or Whore. (Smith) Loge, c. a Watch. I suppose from the French. (B.E.) Loge, a Watch. (Smith)

7

This analogy of form has already been pointed out in previous analyses; cf. Noyes (1941/1991: 225): The dictionary treats over 200 words with many derived expressions and is based on B.E.'s, from which definitions are taken verbatim. The work is more usable, however, as items are arranged in accurate alphabetical order. This opinion is confirmed by Partridge (1970: 70): 'Captain' Alexander Smith added to his History of the Lives and Robberies of the most notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts, and Cheats a "thieves' grammar" and a "thieves' dictionary", which contained little that B.E. had not already listed. Chandler's identification of Smith's source is, on the other hand, somewhat vague: [The dictionary,] repeating most of the cant of Harman and Dekker, added many new terms culled from contemporary slang. (Chandler 1907: 176)

80 It is to be noted, however, that B.E.'s metalinguistic comments are retained whenever they refer to the range of use of the canting terms reported, as in the following case: Shappeau, c. or Shappo, c. for Chappeau, a Hat, the newest Cant, Nab being very old, and grown too common. (B.E.) Shappau, or Shappo, for Chappeau, a Hat, the newest Cant. Nab being very old, and grown too common. (Smith) Alterations to B.E.'s text are at times carried out in a rather careless way, and Smith occasionally misinterprets terms found in his source. In the following examples an adverb is transformed into a common noun (in the first example), while (in the second) a presenttense verb form is rendered by a past participle, thus distorting meaning: Abram-men, c. the seventeenth Order of the Canting-crew. Beggers antickly trick'd up with Ribbands, Red Tape, Foxtails, Rags, &c. pretending Madness to palliate their Thefts of Poultrey, Linnen, &c. (B.E.) Abram men, Beggars, Anticks, trick'd up with Ribbands, red Tape, Fox-Tails, Rags, and the like: Pretending Madness, to palliate their Thefts of Poultry and Linnen. (Smith) Bing, c. to go &c. Bing-awast, c. get you hence. Bing'd awast in a Darkmans, c. stole away in the Night-time. Bing we to Rume vile, c. go we to London. (B.E.) Bing'd awast in a Darkmans, stole away in the Night-time: Bing we to Rum Vile, gone to London. (Smith) Smith's carelessness may also be noticed in a few cases where he incorrectly reproduces B.E.'s text. Here are two examples: Mackarel, c. a Bawd. (B.E.) Mackawl, a Bawd. (Smith) There's a peerey, 'tis snitcht, c. there are a great many People, there's no good to be don. (B.E.) They're sopeery, 'tis snitch'd, i.e. There are a great many People, there's no Good to be done. (Smith) There are instances, however, in which Smith's changes are meant to provide a better equivalent for the canting expression borrowed or to correct errors found in its source, as can be seen in the following entries: Cloud, c. Tobacco, Will ye raise a Cloud, c. shall we Smoke a Pipe? (B.E.) Cloud, Tobacco. Will ye raise a Cloud, i.e. will ye smoak a Pipe. (Smith) Darkmans, c. The night, The Child of darkness, c. a Bell-man. (B.E.) Darkmans, the Night. The Child of Darkmans, i.e. a Bell-man. (Smith) In other changes one can perceive the use of less vulgar expressions on Smith's part. Here are a few examples: Flogg'd at the Tumbler, c. Whipt at the Cart's Arse. (B.E.) Flogg'd at the Tumbler, i.e. whipt at the Cart's Tail. (Smith) The Gentry Cove tipt us rum Peck and rum Gutlers, till we were all Bowsy, and snapt all the Flickers, the Gentleman gave us so much good Victuals, and Canary, that we were all Damn'd Drunk, and broke all the drinking Glasses. (B.E.)

81 The Gentry Cove tipt us rum Peck and rum Cutlers, 'till we were all boozy, and snapt all the Flickers, i.e. the Gentleman gave us so much good Victuals and Canary, that we were all horrid drunk, and broke all the Drinking Glasses. (Smith)

As regards Smith's selection of B.E.'s terms, there is no clear criterion that can be detected from the analysis of the dictionary. The title ('The Thieves New Canting Dictionary of the Words, Terms, Proverbs and Phrases, Used in the Modern Language of the Thieves, &c.') suggests that the author may be focussing on the terms strictly relating to stealing; this could explain Smith's omission of terms such as Academy ("a Bawdy-house"), Accutrements ("fine rigging (now) for Men or Women"), Autem ("a Church, also Married"). However, also many expressions connected with thievery - such as Betty ("a small Engin to force open the Doors of Houses") or Diver ("a Pick-pocket") - have not been borrowed. Smith's coverage of the various semantic categories is similarly inconsistent: some terms referring to stolen or smuggled goods are retained (cf. Bingo, Borde, Clank), while others are omitted (cf. Bilboa, Battner, Baubels)·, a few words referring to clothing are borrowed (cf. Belly-Cheat, Buntlings, Drawers), while others are avoided (cf. Camesa, Pratts)\ some terms referring to prostitution are inserted (cf. BeardSplitter, Doxies, Froe), while others are left out (cf. Academy, Cavaulting School). It is also to be noted that Smith did not include in this dictionary a few canting expressions which he was certainly aware of - as he had made use of them in his description of some of the rogues' lives - but which were absent from B.E.'s publication. This confirms that in compiling this section he copied from his source rather than collected the canting expressions he knew.

7.3. The Thieves Grammar and The Thieves Key

At the end of the third volume of the fifth edition of Alexander Smith's work three short sections of an interesting (meta)linguistic nature appear: 'The Thieves Grammar', 'The Thieves Key' and 'The Thieves Exercise'. The first two appear to have no connection with lexicography, while the third lists several canting expressions. 'The Thieves Grammar' is a pseudo-grammar, whose main parts are exemplified by words either taken from canting vocabulary or having to do with thieves' criminal activities. In this section Alexander Smith displays his own grammatical competence, which once again shows no particular originality, as the author makes use of the various categories commonly found in the current tradition. Eight parts of speech are taken into consideration8: Substantives, Pronouns, Verbs, Participles, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions and Inteijections. As regards Substantives, various features pertaining to this category are mentioned, such as Number (Plural and Singular), Cases (five in Greek, six in Latin), Genders (with the specification that "the Common Accidence taught in England shews Seven", 5 1720, III: 338), Declensions (five) and even Degrees of Comparison. A ninth category - that of Nouns (in the old meaning of 'adjectives') - is only mentioned but not dealt with, as in "these Grammatical rules there are no Nouns at all" ( 5 1720, HI: 336).

82 The types of Pronouns mentioned are classified in three categories: Demonstrative, Interrogative, and Possessive. Verbs are dealt with mainly as regards their irregular and defective nature or with reference to moods, tenses (with the mention of "the five tenses [used] among the Latins", 51720, III: 340) or voice (adopting the Latin distinction into Supine, Active and Passive). In dealing with prepositions, Smith lists the following: "In, With, Through, For, From, By, Into, Toward, Betwixt, Of, Under, Near to, In the Power, Behind, After, Besides, Nigh, Beyond, Until, Before, Openly, Without, Up to" (51720, III: 341), thus listing not only real prepositions, but also prepositional phrases and even adverbs. Besides these eight grammatical categories, Alexander Smith lists other parts, such as Orthography, Etymology, Syntax and Prosodia. Orthography is defined as "the Art of true Writing" (51720, III: 343), while "Etymology shews the Derivation of Words" (51720, III: 344); Syntax is the "Construction of the Eight Parts of Speech" (51720, III: 345) and Prosodia is quoted as "the Art of Versifying" (51720, III: 346). In dealing with the latter category, Smith examines various "Figures", such as Prothesis (defined as "the putting of a Letter or Syllable to the beginning of a Word"), Aphaeresis ("the cutting off of a Letter or Syllable from the beginning of a Word"), Epenthesis ("the Interposition of a Letter or a Syllable in the middle of a Word"), Syncope ("the taking away of a Letter or Syllable from the middle of a Word"), Paragoge ("the putting of a Letter or Syllable to the end of a word"), and Apocope ("the taking away of a Letter or Syllable from the End of a Word") (s1720, III: 346- 8). The section called 'The Thieves Key'9 has no linguistic or lexicographical value, as it mainly deals with characteristics which are considered good qualities of a skilful thief.

7.4. The Thieves Exercise

'The Thieves Exercise' is the last section of the third volume of the fifth edition of Alexander Smith's work. It is of great interest for the canting lexicographer, as it includes thirty expressions drawn from the language of thieves10, a few of which had not appeared in previous publications or had been listed with a different meaning or grammatical function. The purpose of this section is to exemplify the typical linguistic training "wherein Young Beginners are Daily Practised by their Superiours, till they are perfect in the Art and Mystery of Thieving." (51720, III: 357) The majority of the expressions mentioned in this section had already appeared in previous canting publications with more or less the same semantic value; the expressions thus borrowed are: Brush, you prig; Faggot and storm·, Hail up the main Buntlings of that Bloss', Tout the Case·, Dub the Jigger, Draw your Tail·, Run your Tail thro' the Buffer, Bite the Cully, Bite the Bill from the Cull·, Click the Poll from the Cull·, Squeeze the Chats', Fork the old Cove; Pike on the Been; Tip the Cole to Adam Tiler, Nim the Nab; Mill the

9

10

The complete title of the section is The Thieves Key found out, whereby several secret Things are, Unlock'd for the good of the Publick'. The thirty expressions are listed in Appendix 5.

83 Gig with your Betty ·, Look slily into the Glaze ; File the Cly of the Tatler, Stow your Whids and plant 'em. The following, instead, add a few innovations to previous usage: - Bulk the Cull to the Right: the verb used in this expression had been listed in B.E.'s dictionary with an intransitive value, as can be seen from the example provided at tout: "Do you Bulk and I'll File, c. if you'll jostle him, I will Pick his Pocket." Smith, instead, is the first to use bulk as a transitive verb. - Bowman: this word can be found in B.E.'s expression "Tis all Bowman, c. the Coast is clear"; Alexander Smith reports it as a single word used by an accomplice to give "Notice to a House-breaker who's withinside the House, that the Coast being clear, he may sling out what he pleases with safety, or come out himself undiscover'd by any." In addition, some of the expressions listed in 'The Thieves Exercise' contain canting terms which had not been collected in previous dictionaries of the language of the underworld at all. This is the case of the adjective leery in the sentence Halt for the Cull is leery rendered with this equivalent: "That is to say, hold your Hand for the People suspects us for what we are". The only canting usage of this adjective to be found in previous publications is in C. Hitching's The Regulator (1718): "The Cull is leery, alias the Man is shy" (quoted in Partridge 1961: 402). Another word which may have been drawn by Smith from C. Hitching's work is gammon, inserted by Alexander Smith in the sentence Give me Gammon ("That is to side, shoulder, or stand close to a Man, or a Woman, whilst another picks his, or her Pocket"), an expression which cannot be found in any other previous work or dictionary on the underworld. For some canting expressions, instead, no previous mention has been found; one of these is Tomme, which is defined as a "Word [which] gives Notice to a House-breaker, when he's withinside the House, because a Passenger, or Passengers, are then coming by, who may spoil their Design, if they see any Thing flung out at the Window to lie still"; another is Give the Word of Protection, "That is, when your Horse or Foot-Pads have robbed any Person, and permit him to go about his Business, in Case then he should fall among other Rogues by the Way, and is stopt by them, by telling a certain Word, they know he has been robbed, and so let him pass." Another term reported for the first time by Alexander Smith is Angling-stick, appearing in the expression Make ready your Angling-stick', this word corresponds to "a Stick on which a sort of a Worm is put, much like that on a Rammer to pull a Wad or Bullet out of a Musquet, or Fowling-piece, and is used by these petty Thieves call'd Anglers, to pluck Things out of Grates and Shop-windows." The term Angler which appears in this definition, instead, is not new, as it had appeared in several previous canting publications.. In the expression Walk, for the Mort twigs us we find the new canting verb twig. The paraphrase provided for the whole sentence is "to walk up and down a little, because the Woman they suppose has an Eye upon them." Also the word Sneak had never been reported before; it appears in the expression Brush upon the Sneak and has the meaning of "Morning Sneak, Noon-Sneak, or Night-Sneak, which is sneaking into People's Houses when they leave their Doors open." It is to be noted that also the verb brush appearing in the same expression has a meaning which is different

84 from the traditional one: instead of the usual semantic value of 'run away' (cf. Coles 1676/1973), it is provided here with the equivalent 'to tread softly'. The addition of these new expressions and the provision of a different rendering for some traditional canting terms confer a certain degree of lexicographic novelty to Alexander Smith's Compleat History of the Lives and Robberies of the most Notorious Highway-Men. However, the degree of innovativeness of this work remains on the whole quite limited, since - as the analysis in this chapter has shown - the indebtedness to previous publications - and to B.E's dictionary in particular - is substantial. On the other hand, the author has succeeded in justifying the claim made in the preface to his work, that is, to present the canting terms and phrases commonly "used at this present Time by our Modern Thieves", thus making his collection of rogue biographies more realistic and meeting the stylistic requirements of this genre in a more satisfactory way.

Chapter 8

Lexical Additions in A New Canting Dictionary

A New Canting Dictionary appeared anonymously in 1725 with the aim of "Comprehending All the Terms, Antient and Modern, Used in the Several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggars, Shoplifters, High-waymen, Foot-Pads, and all other Clans of Cheats and Villains"1 (1725: Title page). Besides admitting its indebtedness to the previous canting lexicographical tradition2, this new dictionary claims a certain degree of novelty, as it boasts "very large Additions of Words never before made Publick" (1725: Title page). Also the purpose of the dictionary is partly traditional and partly innovative: on the one hand, it is meant to be "Useful for all Sorts of People (especially Travellers and Foreigners) to enable them to secure their Money and preserve their Lives"; on the other, it aims at fulfilling both an informative function ("giving an Account of the Original, Progress, etc. of the Canting Crew") and a social function ("recommending Methods for diminishing these Varlets, by better Employment of the Poor", 1725: Title page). As regards originality, this dictionary has traditionally been considered "an intelligent adaptation of B.E.'s" (Noyes 1941/1991: 213). Indeed, the first part of the preface has been found "almost identical with B.E., Gent's preface" (Burke 1939: 74), and the whole work has been deemed "a mere make-up of earlier attemp" (Hotten 1874: 374). However, a certain degree of novelty has been recognized in some parts of this work: as regards the preface, "some remarks on the canting dialect are new, and an attempt to trace the gipsies is made" (Burke 1939: 74); as regards canting expressions, "the editor of A New Canting Dictionary listed a fair number of terms not in B.E." (Partridge 1970: 70). It should be noted, however, that most of those remarks on the canting dialect not found in B.E. were not new, but could be traced to earlier publications: for example, the Latinate etymology of a few canting terms (e.g. Togeman from Toga, Pannam from Pañis, Casan from Caseus) had already been suggested by Richard Head in The English Rogue. On the other hand, the preface provides very interesting and original linguistic comments, such as those referring to the adoption by the vulgar variety of the English language of certain terms previously used only in the narrower context of the language of the underworld, such as "Bite and Bilk, to Cheat; Bounce to Vapour; Bowse, Strong Drink; Filch, to Steal; Flog, to Whip; Rig, Game or Ridicule; Roast, to banter or rally; Rhino, Money, etc." (1725: Preface) The accurate selection of the entries, the wide range of fields covered, the precision of the definitions and exemplifications offered by A New Canting Dictionary were greatly appreciated by its readers, as can be deduced by the fact that this work became very

2

All quotations are taken from the facsimile copy made from the original volume held in the British Library, printed and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster in 1725. The title page states that this new dictionary is "a Complete Collection of all that has been publish'd ofthat Kind".

86 popular at its time and was used as a source of canting terms by contemporary novel writers3.

8.1. The canting terms drawn from B.E.'s dictionary

Most of the entries of A New Canting Dictionary are drawn from B.E.'s publication. Indeed, of the 2,115 terms listed in the former volume only 162 (about 8% of the total) do not appear in the latter. It should be remarked, however, that entries are borrowed from B.E. in a selective way, many expressions - or parts of them - not being taken into consideration. From the analysis of the omitted entries we can deduce some of the criteria adopted by the compiler of A New Canting Dictionary. A few words or definitions were not borrowed probably because they were considered obsolete. This is the case, for example, of Accoutrements, which retained the semantic value of 'fine Rigging, or Cloaths' and ignored B.E.'s definition "(formerly) only Trappings for Horses". The compiler of A New Canting Dictionary also omitted all those lexemes which did not strictly belong to the language of the underworld; this is true of words belonging to the general language (such as Aim, Air of a Song, Airy, Blind-man's-buff), specialized terms (such as Acquests and Acquisitions, Aft and Abase, Allay, Ambient-Air), literary or figurative expressions (such as Acteon, Acteon'd, Adam's Ale), colloquial expressions (e.g. the Man is in his Altitudes, Animal, Blind-man's-holiday) or words of foreign origin (e.g. Amphibious Creatures and Bordello4). If a term - besides showing one or more canting definitions - also had a more general meaning, the latter was not borrowed, as can be seen in the case of Academy: Academy [B.E.], a Bawdy-house, also an University, or School to learn Genteleman like Exercises. Academy [1725], a Brothel; a Bawdy-House; a Receptacle for all sorts of Villains, where the young Ones are initiated in the Canting Language, and all manner of Cheats and Impostures, and sorted into Tribes and Bands, according to their several Capacities for Mischief.

Many entries were copied verbatim, both headwords and definitions, as can be seen in the cases of Assig, Autem, Bantling, Bar-wig, Baste, Bess, etc. However, whenever a mistake was found in B.E's dictionary, the text was corrected, as can be seen in the following example: Itch-land [B.E.], Wales. Itch-land [1725], Scotland.

4

For example, this was the dictionary from which Henry Fielding drew his canting expressions to make the characters of his Life of Jonathan Wild speak a "truer language" (cf. Rinehart 1969). In adopting this criterion for omissions, however, the compiler of A New Canting Dictionary proved inconsistent, as he retained some of B.E.'s words of foreign origin, such as Bravado and Bravo.

87 Similarly, other mistakes were corrected, such as wrong listing in alphabetical order, misprints5 or erroneous inclusion of inappropriate examples, incompatible with their entries. One instance of the latter is the following: Case [B.E.], A House, Shop, or Ware-house; also a Bawdy-house. Toute the Case, to view, mark or eye the House or Shop. There's a peerey, 'tis snitcht, there are a great many People, there's no good to be don. Tis all Bob, and then to dub the gigg, now the coast is clear, there's good Booty, let's fall on, and Rob the House. A Case fro, a Whore that Plies in a Bawdy-house. Case [1725], a House, Shop, or Ware-house: also a Bawdy-house. Toute the Case, to view, mark, or eye the House or Shop. Tis all Bob; now let's dub the Gigg of the Case, Now the coast is clear, let's fall on, and break the Door of the House. Where exemplifications were incomplete in the original text, they were reproduced in their full form in the 1725 volume, as can be seen in the following instance: Gigger [B.E.], a Door. Dub the Gigger, open the Door with the Pick-lock that we may go in and Rob the House. Gigger [1725], a Door. Dub the Gigger, that we may ravage the Ken, i.e. Open the Door with the Pick-lock, that we may go in and Rob the House. In most cases, however, the compiler of A New Canting Dictionary expanded the original definitions in order to make the meaning more easily understandable or to render them more suitable to the canting context. Here are examples of these two kinds of modification: Cock-baw'd [B.E.], a Man that follows that base Employment. Cock-bawd [1725], a Man who follows that base Employment, of procuring; a Pimp. Campaign-coat [B.E.], Originally only such as Soldiers wore, but afterwards a Mode in Cities. Campaign-coat [1725], in a Canting Sense, the ragged, tatter'd, patch'd Coat, worn by Beggars and Gypsies, in order to move Compassion. When an expression was also commonly used in the general language, a specification was added to explain the particular semantic value it possessed in the underworld jargon. The following is an instance of such amplification: Banbury-story [B.E:], of a Cock and a Bull, silly chat. Banbury-story [1725], of a Cock and a Bull, an idle Relation, in order to pick Acquaintance on the Road, till a convenient Place and Opportunity offer to rob or plunder.

5

It is to be noted, however, that misprints can also be found in the 1725 dictionary, as can be seen in the following cases: Gyb'd, Jerkt or [no other synomym is provided] Cloy, to Steal. Cloy the Clout, to steal the Money. [Clout means "handkerchief, not 'money'] What probably determined the mistake in the latter quotation was the skipping of a part of the original definition by the printer; indeed, B.E.'s text was as follows: Cloy, to steal. Cloy the Clout, to Steal the Handkerchief. Cloy the Lour, to Steal the Money; also in another Sense, to Cloy, is to nauseate or Satiate.

88 The definitions borrowed were often expanded in order to make them more detailed and precise, as can be seen in the following quotation, in which the exact measure of the bottle was added: Bawdy-house-bottle [B.E.], a very small one. Bawdy-house-bottle [1725], a very small one; that holds little more than a Pint, and is sold for a Quart in most Houses of ill Repute. The compiler of A New Canting Dictionary always provided appropriate definitions for his entries, including those cases in which B.E. only placed an example after his entries. Here is an instance of such modification: Bacon [B.E.], as he sav'd his bacon, he has escap'd with a whole Skin. A good voice to beg Bacon, said in jear of an ill voice. Bacon [1725], in the Canting Sense, is the Prize, of whatever kind, which Robbers make in their Enterprizes. He has sav'd his Bacon, i.e. he has himseff escap'd the Hue-and-Cry, and carry'd off his Prize to boot: Whence it is commonly us'd for any narrow Escape. The Cove has a bien Squawl to maund Bacon, i.e. He has a good Voice to beg Bacon; us'd to jeer a bad Voice, or an indifferent Singer. The Bacon-Sweard rakes in his Throttle, i.e. The Sweard of the Bacon sticks in his Throat; us'd to a Person who has a Hoarseness, or one, who, at their Merry-meetings, excuses himself from Singing, on pretence of a Cold; the usual Excuse of affected People in other Companies besides Canters, who want to be much intreated, and, if let alone, will deafen one's Ear with Noise; like Tigellius, whom Horace, Sat ΙΠ. thus lashes: [etc.]. The opposite intervention also occurred - that is, adding exemplifications in those cases in which B.E. only gave a mere synonym in the standard language -, as can be seen in the following quotation: Battner [B.E.], an Ox. Battner [1725], an Ox; The Cove has hush'd the Battner, i.e. He has kill'd the Ox, in order to be revenged on some Farmer, etc. who, perhaps, had got him sent to the House of Correction. Sometimes B.E.'s definitions were considered too short to provide an adequate rendering of the entries. In these cases the 1725 dictionary added further details and explanations. The following is an example: Beautrap [B.E.], a Sharper. Beau-traps [1725], the Fortieth Order of Villains, Genteel-dress'd Sharpers, who lie in wait to insnare and draw in young Heirs, raw Country Squires, and ignorant Fops. When a certain concept could be expressed by different terms in the canting language, B.E.'s definition was enriched by the addition of a synonym of the entry, as can be seen in the following case where the mention of Cucumbers (a synonymous entry appearing subsequently in the dictionary) is made: Cabbage [B.E.], a Taylor, and what they pinch from the Cloaths they make up; also that part of the Deer's Head where the Horns are Planted. Cabbage [1725], Taylors are so called, because of their general and immoderate Love of that Vegetable; as also of Cucumbers. The Cloth they steal and purloin from the Raiment they make up, is also called Cabbage, which oftentimes affords them Breeches and Wastecoats for themselves, as well as whole Suits for very young and new-breech'd Boys; and, at the least,

89 Cloth for Womens Shoes, and Silk (especially among Womens Taylors, and Manteau-makers) sufficient to supply half the Ladies in Town. This quotation also shows another feature of the 1725 dictionary, which consists of providing an explanation for the origin of the term illustrated. As can be seen also from the following example, the most obvious source was usually found in the meaning that term had in the general language, which was adopted in its metaphorical or metonymical form by the canting jargon: Whiggs [1725], originally the Field-Conventiclers in the West of Scotland; so called from sowre Milk on which they use'd chiefly to feed. The expansion of B.E.'s definitions sometimes implied the insertion of illustrative anecdotes, drawn either from the abundant rogue literature of the period or from the compiler's personal knowledge. Here is an example: Bite [B.E.], a Rogue, Sharper or Cheat; also a Womans Privities. Bite [1725], a Rogue, Sharper or Cheat; also a Woman's Privities; [...] Of all the Bites we have heard of in Modern Times, that of a late Criminal, Holloway, I think it was, deserves to be remembered, for what is related of his harden'd Boldness and Villainy, even in the very last Article of his Life. This Fellow having been condemn'd to Death for many enormous Villainies; the Day before his Execution, sent for a Surgeon, to whom he offerti to sell his Corps for Dissection. The Surgeon offered him a certain Sum, which the Criminal insisted was not enough for so sound and vigorous a Body as his. See here, said he, are Limbs! here are Muscles! and stripping open his Bosom, Here's a Chest, says he, so plump, so white, as mil rise to your Knife, and do Credit to your art! Don't this deserve 10s. more than a common Corps? Hereupon the Surgeon agreeing to his Price, and paying the Sum insisted upon, the harden'd Villain, bursting into a loud Laugh at him, ciyd out, A Bite! A Bite! by G—! I am to be hang'd in Chains to Morrow, and so laugh'd the astonish'd Surgeon out of the Prison. In modifying the definitions of the terms borrowed from B.E., the editor of A New Canting Dictionary often took the opportunity to insert his comments on contemporary aspects of life, such as the corrupted state of the administration of justice: Affidavit men [B.E.], Knights of the Post, Mercenary Swearers for Hire, Inhabitants (formerly) of White Friers, now dispersed. Affidavit-men [1725], Knights of the Post; mercenary and abandon'd Wretches, who us'd to frequent the Temple and other Inns of Court, in order to be in Readiness to swear any thing that was propos'd to them; whence the too just Satire on Corrupt Attorneys, who were wont to undertake a Cause for a certain Sum, which was more or less, as they or the Client agreed to find Evidence. The Mint was once the Place of Resort for these peijur'd Miscreants, till the late Act that suppress'd the Licentiousness of that Place, dispers'd them: Tho' at this Time, to the great Disgrace of Christianity, such Persons are too easily to be found, who will swear through all the Points of the Compass, to serve any villainous Purpose, and rob an Innocent Man of his Right. Among these amplifications we can find interesting historical details, which can help modern readers to reconstruct the social context in which the canting language was used. An example of this can be found in the following definitions: Alsatia the higher [B.E.], White Friers. Alsatia the lower [B.E.], the Mint in Southwark.

90 Alsatia the higher [1725], White Flyers, once a Privileg'd Place, as the Mint was lately; but suppress'd, on Account of the notorious Abuses committed in it, and a Riot that happen'd in the Reign of Charles Π. occasion'd by their protecting the Enthusiasts, call'd Levellers and Fifth Monarchy-Men. This Place also, when subsisting, used to furnish the corrupt Members of the Law with Affidavit-Men, or Knights of the Post; who were afterwards obliged to resort to Alsatia the lower [1725], the Mint in Southwark, the Liberties whereof being abus'd, occasion'd an Act to pass in the Session of Parliament, 9°. Georgii, to suppress the same. Since which, they have refug'd themselves in Wapping, and erected a New Mint there; but have so irregularly and riotously behaved themselves in it, and been guilty of so many outragious Insolencies, that they have brought themselves under the Cognizance of the Parliament, who are now actually taking effectual Measures to suppress them. Some explanations also testify to changes in fashions, which had also determined a parallel linguistic change. For example, the shift from the carrying of purses to the use of pockets had caused a similar modification in the term used to denote people stealing money from others: Bung-nipper [B.E.], a Cutpurse, or Pickpocket. Bung-nippers [1725], Cut-purses, who with a short sharp Knife, and an hom Thumb, used to cut a Purse with all imaginable Ease. Since the wearing of Purses is out of Fashon, they are called Files, or Pick-pockets, pursuing the same Design, and only changing their Name. B.E.'s definitions were at times amplified, so as to include the wider meanings that the entries had acquired in the meanwhile. This is the case of the expression Boarding-school·. Boarding-school [B.E.], Bridewell. Boarding-school [1725], in a Canting Sense, is Bridewell, or New-Prison, or any Work-house or House of Correction, for Vagrants, Beggars and Villains of all Denominations. In some cases the 1725 dictionary explicitly reports the evolution of the meaning of a particular entry. Here is an instance of this type of comment: Backt [B.E.], dead, as he wishes the old Man backt, he longs to have his father upon six Mens shoulders, or as his Back's up, he is in a fume, or angry. Back'd [1725], dead; as, He wishes the Senior back'd, i.e. He longs to have his Father upon Six Mens Shoulders. His Back's up, a taunting Expression at first us'd only to little peevish crook back'd People, when they were angry: But now said of any Person who is disgusted or out of Humour. Whenever certain terms had become obsolete and yet were considered important for dealing with the various categories of the members of the underworld, they were borrowed from B.E.'s volume, but their archaic status was clearly pointed out: Faytors [B.E.], The Second (old) Rank of the Canting Crew. Faytors, or Fators [1725], The Second old Rank of the Canting Crew: A kind of Gypsies, pretending to tell People their Fate or Destiny, or what they were born to. Now obsolete; but reckon'd the Twenty-seventh Order of Canters. The definitions provided by the compiler of A New Canting Dictionary often contained interesting comments on the appropriateness of the choice of a certain term. An example of this metalinguistic intervention can be seen in the explanation of the entry Balsom : Balsom [B.E.], Money.

91 Balsom [1725], Money: The Cove has secur'd the Balsom, i.e. He has seized the Money. A Term very proper to the Purpose, since Money is a Sovereign Catholicon to heal wounded Minds and retrieve desperate Circumstances; and not seldom saves a Rogue from the Gallows.

Another interesting type of metalinguistic comment appears in those cases in which a term originally used only in canting contexts had been adopted by the general language. Apart from the terms commonly known and already mentioned in the preface, more were pointed out in the dictionary itself; here are a couple of examples: Woman of the Town, at first used by Canters, but now also in common Speech, for a Prostitute, or common Harlot. Yellow, at first used by the Canters only, but now in common Speech, for being Jealous.

On the whole, the definitions and exemplifications provided by the compiler of A New Canting Academy are much more exhaustive6, and cover many more aspects, concerning not only the meaning of the various expressions, but also their origin and usage.

8.2. The other terms listed in the dictionary

As regards the other terms listed in A New Canting Dictionary7, the majority of them are the result of the compiling work of the editor, who decided to insert additional underworld expressions known to him. Nevertheless, a few of these expressions could have been derived from B.E.'s dictionary, although they did not appear there as individual entries but as part of the exemplifications of other terms; this is the case of Beef (