d statute of the xxii of
Hen. VIII.; "that scholars at the universities begging
without licence, were to be punished like common cursi-
tors." The vagabonds of Spain are equally celebrated for
their use of a peculiar slang or cant, as will be seen on
reference to a very curious work of Rafael Frianoro,
entitled" _Il Vagabondo, overo sferzo de bianti e
Vagabondi_." _Viterbo_, 1620, 12mo. As also in those
excellent novels, "Lazarillo do Tormes," and "Guzman de
Alfarache." The _Romany_ or gipsies' dialect is given with
the history of that singular people by Mr. Grellman; an
English translation of which was published in 1787, by
Roper, in quarto: from those works, Grose principally
compiled his "Lexicon Ballatronicum." In the present day we
have many professors of slang, and in more ways than one,
too many of cant; the greater part of whom are dull
impostors, who rather invent strange terms to astonish the
vulgar than adhere to the peculiar phrases of the persons
they attempt to describe. It has long been matter of regret
with the better order of English sporting men, that the
pugilistic contests and turf events of the day are not
written in plain English, "which all those who run might
read," instead of being rendered almost unintelligible by
being narrated in the language of beggars, thieves, and
pickpockets--a jargon as free from true wit as it is full of
obscenity.

~261~~Keate's{7} learning would not have compensated for under the
peculiar circumstances in which I was placed.

It was now that the mischief was done, and many a sound head was
cracked, and many a courageous heart was smarting 'neath their wounds in
the gloomy dungeons of the castle, or waiting in their rooms the probing
instrument and plasters of Messrs. Wall, or Kidd, or Bourne, that a few
of us, who had escaped tolerably well, and were seated round a bowl of
bishop in the snug _sanctum sanctorum_ of the Mitre, began to inquire
of each other the origin of the fray. After a variety of conjectures and
vague reports, each at variance with the other, and evidently deficient
in the most remote connexion with the true cause of the strife, it was
agreed to submit the question to the waiter, as a neutral observer, who
assured us that the whole affair arose out of a trifling circumstance,
originating with some mischievous boys, who, hav