6 The use of a peculiar cant phraseology for different classes, it would appear, originated with the Argoliers, a species of French beggars or monkish impostors, who were notorious for every thing that was bad and infamous: these people assumed the form of a regular government, elected a king, established a fixed code of laws, and invented a language peculiar to themselves, constructed probably by some of the debauched and licentious youths, who, abandoning their scholastic studies, associated with these vagabonds. In the poetical life of the French robber Cartouche, a humorous account is given of the origin of the word _Argot_; and the same author has also compiled a dictionary of the language then in use by these people, which is annexed to the work. Hannan, in his very singular work, published in 1566, entitled "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursitors (runners), vulgarly called Vagabones," has described a number of the words then in use, among what he humorously calls the "lued lousey language of these lewtering beskes and lasy lovrels." And it will be remembered that at that time many of the students of our universities were among these cursitors, as we find by an old 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.