editorial pains of this flashy work; and the publisher dishedup a title conformably thereto, to grace or to sell his books. "Hell-fire Dick's" name, with some others, bore a prominent feature on the first leaf; Dick Owen, or Vowen, or Vaughan, had, however, nought whatever to do with "the writing part," not being in the habit of penmanship; and he was, moreover, previously dead and buried. The other names on the title were fictitious, or not allowable,-it was, in fact, a printer's job; nevertheless, the book contained all that other books of the same profession contained, and much new and interesting matter, and may be pronounced the best edition of Grose, and the farthest-gone thing of the kind ever produced, or probably that ever will be produced.

A reprint, of Grose's old edition appeared last year, with copious extracts from this last-mentioned edition, t and the introduction of several inventions of the editor's own manufacture. These latter were necessarily impertinent; besides, a man who makes cramp words and invents arbitrary names in one place for the purpose of giving explanations in a fresh book, does, but increase the evil by creating error and uncertainty. It was but a poor excuse, that a certain writer of his own memoirs, (Vaux) noticed at page 3, had added thereto a cant Dictionary, filled with the like absurdities.§ To complete the enumeration it is proper just to notice, that the latter thing-like Dictionary is reprinting (nearly verbatim) by piece-meal, as a make-weight, at the end of an obscure weekly publication, which has been set up

*This reprint was undertaken in great haste, upon the printer thereof learning that materials for the present dictionary were in train, (April 28, 1822;) and it appeared in December, a time too short for the research necessary to such a work. How it has failed a comparison will show.

+ Like every other work of the same nature, Clarke's edition of 1811 contained a few misprints or errors of the press. These have been copied, with Simian servility, into the publication of last year; thus is error propagated. In ten minutes, ten such blundering mishaps of the copyist caught our eye; take for example, 1st. "TO BLOT THE SKRIP AND JAR IT," Edition of 1811; the k in Jark is dropped out, leaving a white space:-the careful editor of 1822 has left it out also! 2d. "CARVELS RING," in the edition of 1811, Hans Carvel, is misprinted Ham at one place so the new edition of last year.

Mr. Egan, we have shewn (with small exertion of critical acumen) is wholly incapable of undertaking a work requiring grammatical accuracy-to say no more here.

His Memoirs were suppressed by reason of the vice they inculeated, and with them Viscouut Collard's Cant went likewise to the trunk-makers.'

by the black-legs of St. James's, in defence of their illegal occupation. It is a 4to., and if we quote the initial, Mthe item is not given with any design of aiding the infernal purpose of its supporters: See Play-world, in Addenda.

*

Of the manner of executing the following pages, something need be said in explanation; particularly as regards omitting almost entirely to name the authorities cited. With numerous examples before our eyes of a contrary and more satisfactory course of proceeding, the present departure from that custom might be considered a retrogradation in Lexicography, but for the circumstance of this work being calculated to throw light upon the authours so quoted, explaining their absurdities, elucidating obscurities, and laying bare their secrets, rather than receiving light from them. A few exceptions will be found, however, wherein this rule no-rule is departed from, without weakening its validness; for, it would be most absurd to say to a man who sets out in life, or in book-making, upon a wrong plan, "Don't alter," as some worldlings might then arrive at a bon-ton Cockney's alter—which has (h) for its initial; but, when we turned away from wrong-doing, in this respect, we disdained to erase, through pride, and to show how a vigorous mind goes on to improve ad finam, like the last gleams of an expiring taper. And, truly some of our authorities would be none, as Dogberry might say, not being drawn from books, or other written documents; but being dictæ, aptly drawn from the mouths of downie coves, phrases overheard in the market-place, or slang picked up in the coffeepanny, around the ring, and at other verbal sources equally authentic, where the people do not make parade of their deep reading or facile penmanship, the quoting of names would redound little to our- -purpose. What satisfaction could be derived from the knowledge that such and such phrases fell in the super-finest style from the potatoe-traps of Harry

The glossaries of Spelman, Ducange, Junius, Dr. Whitter, were visible precedents, as were the Dictionaries of the Academie Françoise, and of Johnson. But those old worthies required support and the suffrage of others still more ancient: sad apology for book-making culprits, who thus call evidence to character! For the present attempt, on the contrary, no such support is requisite, no helping a lame dog over a stile; whilst our motives rest unimpugned, no impleader of " Not guilty" can be put in; nor need we, by naming our acquaintances like those worthies, blazon our learned research; for this must be felt by the reader at every pas.

Lemoine, or Harry Dimsdale, of General or Joe Norton? What though we cited to reappear Bill Soames, or Mister G. Pound, or, indeed, to say no more, of Mr. William Perry,* each, in his distinct degree, a professor? In another walk of life's varieties, would our readers balance between the preference to be given, in this respect, to those par nobiles, Bill Gibbons, Jack Scroggins, or Jack Carter? or those other great orators, Jack Atcherlee, Harlequin Billy, or Jack Goodlad?

Come we now to the consideration of those other heads of our glossarial labours named in the frontispiece; in the course of which we hope to show, these were not undertaken impertinently, without previous preparation for the task, nor without a view to practical utility, and to the character and manners of the times. Having well cleared away the rubbish, the elevation proceeds without interruption.

This person, as well as Soames, are public characters of no little moment, on the present occasion, and each deserves a word or two'to character.' Having once touted Bill drawing a tattler, without splitting; the fellow in return paid a look of gratitude once a quarter for twenty years; and, when he had got lagged through the false evidence of Vaughan, (the traitor-trap,) who was it obtained a revision of his sentence, and consequent pardon, but Jon Bee, Esq.! Bill is, however, gone again, the herring-pond to scan; done, doubly, for a dingy wipe, the hapless man!

As for Will. Perry, who "left it off, and went into the service of a brewer," with him our ratlins have been closer rooved. Will could write too, and indite too; qualifications which, backed by his master's assurances, recommended him to our consideration, though not to our endearments. He confessed all, in black and white (in 1818); we proved his veracity in most cases, took his word for the remainder, and, dismissing the last thought of concealing a secret, (an impossibility,) published all. Perry's "London Guide, or Living Picture of London," a pocket manual, will receive no puff at these plumed hands-the public having decided; it was, moreover, about to become the precursor of another work, modified to "Living London," undertaken for the publisher of a still life," Picture of London." But the speculation having blown off, the circumstance casually came out before another publisher, in April (mensis ominis,) and not long after appeared the "Life in London" of Egan, 1820. In this sort was Will Perry, a character suspected of having lost something besides a fin, the first cause of that deluge of lowlife exposition which, for three years, hath floated Town; unless, indeed, we go back to a higher cause than Perry, even to Soames himself, the recital of whose unwon suavities brought Perry under notice in such a way as to excite us to take a handmaid's part in his said confessions.Proud lent a hand to Dr. H. Clarke's edition of Grose before noticed.

+ The reasons for inaction are assigned in the new Monthly Magazine, for June 1817, ("Hints on Police Matters") and London Guide, p. 21.

Fitness for an undertaking of this nature is not always to be found in the aptitude or similarity of an author's previous pursuits. Some pounce upon and perform (a novelty) a miracle at once, by a single effort as it were: this is genius; but genius is poetical, and belongs not to a critical glossary or explication, particularly of sporting terms. Hard work, years of drudgery, and labour upon labour, is his lot who undertakes the composition of a dictionary; and, notwithstanding his utmost care, he subsequently reviseth his pages with a blush for such as seem too positively penned. For the Chase, (primæval sport!) and that refinement on its hippiatric adjunct, the Turf, what has been done by Osbaldeston, by Taplin, or by the anonymous "Sportsman's Dict." 4to. Robinsons? Mere names these, signifying sound, with barefaced paltry plagiarism, prepense and aforethought. The Ring, abandoned to worse than Cimmerian darkness, for years lay prostrate at the feet of misintelligence, to call it by no fitter name; misrule ran riot round its ranks, whilst mishaps and mistakes (buls) misfortunes and misericordia, with several other misses, followed each other in mazy wild, until "a Ring!" could no longer be called without a mis-fit and many misdeeds.

Paternally refrigerant of those misdoings, the projection of a fortnightly publication, titled "The Fancy," six months stemmed the torrent, like unto so many stout Acts of Parliament. Its pages inculcated some enlightened views, and boasted of more accurate reports, than hitherto attempted, on every topic connected with British sports, particularly those of the Ring, until the period of its cessation, (Dec. 1821;*) when the projection of a greatly enlarged publication, monthly, entitled the Fancy Gazette and Annals of Sporting,t much more room, and a more substantial vehicle, gave hopes of the realization of those philanthropic wishes. In its progress hitherto, instruction as much as amusement has been sought

* Sixteen numbers owe to this pen their contents: We are answerable for every line of 392 pages, and the sale of several thousand copies of each, expressed the favourable opinion of the public. Hereupon, that which was done for the historians Henry by Andrews, and Watson by Thomson, Squire Jones, (the "Actual Life" man) undertook to perform for us; but he soon declined the plagiary, when several more publications with the same title, (numbering 17 and onwards,) were produced by a button-maker's apprentice. But "soft is your horn," Sawney.

+ Conceding to an immaterial alteration, the first is now last and the last first.

for, and a portion of the credit attached thereto, was obtained rather than profit.* Those characteristics, and unshaken honesty in drawing conclusions, attracted monthly to that print an unexampled degree of public patronage; not among those of The Sporting World,' merely, (novices, adepts, and amateurs,) but those right Old-English gentlemen, also, men of learning and taste, who see the English character in English sports, and would sustain the former by upholding the latter. To some of those, the terms of art appropriate to each respective sport, were unknown, or not properly appreciated, and the mixed reading of others necessarily fell into distraction and confusion, in consequence of the Slangwhangery of the Jargonists;† a state of incertitude, and liableness to error and misconception, it became indispensable should be put an end to, in some manner or other; and the alphabetic form offering readier means of reference than the didactic, (which had been awhile pursued,) that arrangement was therefore adopted. How the design has been executed may be worth examination.

Most of the amateurs in one species of sport evince a certain taste for one other species, at least, some for all; and it is not uncommon to find the same gentleman alternately in the

Very strange, but very true, notwithstanding, on the part of its editor, at least: very few real Sportsmen look after the bustle, except as it contributes to their favourite fancy.

The office of editor is described under that head in Addenda. He is not, however, entitled to commendation for every excellent piece that appears in his publication; nor, by the same token, ought he to attract censure for every prosing essay, or fudgeful treatise that may creep into his publication, any more than the skilful accoucheur is answerable for the after-follies of a wet-nurse. "More nonsensical essays have followed the word "On," said Sam. Johnson, "than any other word in the English language." " On Peace, on Marriage, on Dying, &c." and alack the stuff that follows.

As to the particular publication spoken of in the text, the share its literary accoucheur-dad takes in each number, may be drawn from the big-letter words “Fancy GazetTE" to the end of each, respectively; (with one unmarked exception, only, in No. 8,) including all the Annals proper, or "Occurrences," together with an essay or two (or three) in the first division, and the critical revision of such of those essayists as request that favour; the 9th No. being the only one for which those offices pervades every page, the 17th, on the contrary, having only one such piece at his hand, viz." Memoirs of Thornton."

+ The reader will of course turn to those words in the Dictionary ; also, to Bul, Craven stakes, &c. &c. and A la, Box, Nouvelle, Historian and Snakeheaded in the Addenda.