:

the gipsies themselves conversed; for under the constant and so long continued influx of these languages, their own must necessarily have suffered great alteration. In this learned work there is also a comparison of the gipsies with the above cast of Suders: but I lay the greatest stress upon those proofs which are deduced from the similarity of the languages. In the supplement it is mentioned that Marsden had obtained as many words as he could get, and that by a correspondence from Constantinople he procured a collection of words used by the Cingaris thereabouts; and these, together with the words given by Ludolph in his "Historia Ethiopica," compared with Hindostan vulgar language, show it to be the same that is spoken by the gipsies and in Hindostan. Harrison, in his " Description of England," describing the various sorts of cheats practised by the voluntary poor, after enumerating those who maim or disfigure their bodies by sores, or counterfeit the guise of labourers or serving men, or mariners seeking for ships which they have not lost, to extort charity, adds:" It is not yet full threescore years since this trade began but how it hath prospered since that time it is easie to judge, for they are now supposed of one sex and another to amount vnto aboue 10,000 persons, as I haue heard reported. Moreouer. in counterfeiting the Egyptian roges, they haue deuised a language among themselues which they name Canting, but others Pedlers French, a speach compact thirtie yeares since of English and a great number of od words of their owne deuising, without all order or reason: and yet such is it as none but themselues are able to vnderstand. The first deuiser thereof was hanged by the necke, a iust reward no doubt for his deceits and a common end to all of that profession." Holinshed, 1587, p. 183. In Rid's Art of Jugling, 1612, sign.B b, is the following account:"These kind of people about an hundred years agoe, about the twentieth yeare of King Henry the eight, began to gather an head, at the first heere about the Southerne parts, and this (as I am informed) and as I can gather, was their beginning. Certaine Egiptians, banished their cuntry, (belike not for their good conditions), arrived heere in England, who being excellent in quaint tricks and devises, not known heere at that time among us, were esteemed and had in great admiration, for what with strangeness of their attire and garments, together with their sleights and legerdemaines, they were spoke of farre and neere, insomuch that many of our English loyterers joyned with them, and in time learned their crafte and cosening. The speach which they used was

the right Egyptian language, with whome our Englishmen conversing with, at least learned their language. These people continuing about the country in this fashion, practicing their cosening art of fast and loose legerdemaine, purchased themselves great credit among the cuntry people, and got much by palmistry and telling of fortunes, insomuch they pitifully cosened the poore contry girles, both of money, silver spones, and the best of their apparrell, or any good thing they could make, onely to hear their fortunes." "This Giles Hather (for so was his name) together with his whore, Kit Calot, in short space had following them a pretty traine, he terming himself the King of the Egiptians, and she the quene, ryding about the cuntry at their pleasure uncontrolld." He then mentions the statute against them of the 1st and 2d of Philip and Mary, on which he observes"But what a number were executed presently upon this statute, you would wonder: yet, notwithstanding, all would not prevaile: but still they wandred, as before, up and downe, and meeting once in a yeare at a place appointed: sometime at the Devil's A- in Peake in Darbishire, and otherwhiles at Ketbrooke by Blackheath, or elsewhere, as they agreed still at their meeting." Speaking of his own time, he adds: "These fellowes seeing that no profit comes by wandring, but hazard of their lives, do daily decrease and breake off their wonted society, and betake themselves, many of them, some to be pedlers, some tinkers, some juglers, and some to one kinde of life or other." William Bullein, in his Treatise "of Simples and Surgery," accompanying his Bulwarke of Defence, 1562, in which the author speaks of dog-leeches and Egyptians, and Jews: all pretending to the telling of fortunes and curing by charms. "They " (dog-leeches) "buy some gross stuff, with a box of salve and cases of tools to set forth their slender market withal, &c. Then fall they to palmistry and telling of fortunes, daily deceiving the simple. Like unto the swarms of vagabonds, Egyptians, and some that call themselves Jews: whose eyes were so sharp as lynx. For they see all the people with their knacks, pricks, domifying, and figuring, with such like fantasies. Faining that they have familiers and glasses, whereby they may find things that be lost. And, besides them, are infinite of old doltish witches with blessings for the fair and conjuring of cattel." Strype's Annals, ii., 611. In Dekker's Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1608, Sign. G 2, the gipsies are called Moone-men, and a section is devoted to an account of " a strange wild people, very dangerous to townes and

country villages," as they are called; and Dekker draws a picture of them, which closely corresponds with our experience of their modern descendants or representatives. I am sorry that his account is too long for transfer hither. "In "Witt's Recreations," a long piece called "The gipsies " occurs, which is curious, as it contains a good deal of phraseology evidently supposed by the writer to be peculiar to the class, but then, as now, common to all the mendicant fraternity. In Harman's time (1566) many of the terms were current among thieves and beggars, which are familiar to modern ears. Spelman's portrait of the gipsy fraternity in his time, which seems to have been taken ad vivum, is as follows: " Egyptiani. Errorum Impostorumque genus nequissimum in Continente ortum, sed ad Britannias nostras et Europam reliquam pervolans-nigredine deformes, excocti sole, immundi veste, et usu rerum omnium foedi.-Fœminæ cum stratis et parvulis, jumento invehuntur. Literas circumferunt Principum, ut innoxius illis permittatur transitus.-Oriuntur quippe et in nostra et in omni Regione, spurci hujusmodi nebulones, qui sui similes in Gymnasium sceleris adsciscentes; vultum, cultum, moresque supradictos sibi inducunt. Linguam (ut exotici magis videantur) fictitiam blaterant, provinciasque vicatim pervagantes, auguriis et furtis, imposturis & technarum millibus plebeculam rodunt et illudunt, linguam, hanc Germani Rotwelch, quasi rubrum Wallicum, id est Barbarismum; Angli Canting nuncupant.' In "The Character of a Quack Astrologer," 1673, sign. A 3 verso, our wise man, a gypsey of the upper form," is called a three-penny prophet that undertakes the telling of other folks fortunes, meerly to supply the pinching necessities of his own." At sign. B 3 our cunning man is said to "begin with theft, and to help people to what they have lost, picks their pockets afresh; not a ring or spoon is nim'd away, but pays him twelvepence toll, and the ale-drapers' often-straying tankard yields him a constant revenue: for that purpose he maintains as strict a correspondence with gilts and lifters, as a mountebank with applauding midwives and recommending nurses and if at any time, to keep up his credit with the rabble, he discovers anything, 'tis done by the same occult Hermetic learning, heretofore profest by the renowned Mall-Cut-Purse." These used still, in Brand's time, to be called "Wise Men" in the villages of Durham and Northumberland. Gay, in his "Pastorals," speaking of a girl who is slighted by her lover, thus describes the gipsies:

prove,

Some in my worldly gain, but most in love.

Next morn I miss'd three hens and our old cock,

And, off the hedge, two pinners and a smock."

In the North of England and Scotland they seem to have enjoyed some share of indulgence. Before the middle of the sixteenth century we meet with "Letters of Defence and Concurrence to John Fall, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, for assisting him in the execution of Justice upon to the Laws his Company, conform of Egypt, February 15th, 1540-1.' These gang of gypsies associated together in are supposed to have been a defiance of the State under Fall, as their head or king, and these the articles of association for their internal government, mutual defence and security, the embroil'd and infirm state of the Scotish nation at that time not permitting them to repress or restrain a combination of vagrants, who had got above the laws, and erected themselves into a separate community as a set of banditti." There is a curious letter of the justices of Durham to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord President of the North, dated at Durham, Jan. 19, 1549-50, concerning the gipsies and Faws. A writ of Privy Seal, dated 1549, supports John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, in the execution of justice on his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing certain persons there named, who rebelled against him, left him, robbed him, and refused to return home with him. James's subjects are commanded to assist in apprehending them, and in assisting Faw and his adherents to return home. There Queen of Scots, 1553; and in 1554 he obis a like writ in his favour from Mary tained a pardon for the murder of Nunan Small. So that it appears he had staid long in Scotland, and perhaps some time in England, and from him this kind of strolling people might receive the name of Faw Gang, which they still retain. "Privy Seal Book of Edinburgh," no. XIV. fol. 59, quoted in "Gent. Mag." for Oct. 1785. This document is noticed by Ellis in his first series of "Original Letters," 1825. Lodge's "Illust. of British History," vol. i. p. 135. Mr. Hampton has pointed out, in his most in

teresting "Origines Patricia," 1846, that Johnny Faw, the familiar name for the old gipsy chiefs, was corrupted from Fowde or Faad, the Danish name for a governor, and the same writer mentions that, in the Acts of James VI. of Scotland, 1581, the term is used in the sense of bailiff.

In Scotland, in the eighteenth century, the gipsies appear to have been tolerably abundant. A person writing from Eaglesham, Co. Renfrew, about 1795, says: "There is no magistrate nearer than within four miles; and the place is oppressed with gangs of gipsies, commonly called tinkers or randy-beggars, because there is nobody to take the smallest account of them." Stat. Acc. ii., 124. There is a well-known Scotish song entitled " Johnny Faa, the Gypsie Laddie." An advertisement in the "Newcastle Courant," July 27, 1754, offers a reward for the apprehending of John Fall and Margaret his wife, William Fall and Jane, otherwise Ann his wife, &c. commonly called or known by the name of Fawe," &c. Gipsies still continue to be called "Faws in the North of England. Since the repeal of the Act against this people in 1788 they are said to have declined in numbers. In May, 1797, their settlement at Norwood was broken up, and they were treated as vagrants. The number of genuine gipsies in England is not large; but there are thousands of women fortune-tellers, who pretend to be gipsies, and affect to understand palmistry and divination.

The

gipsies are universally considered in the same light, i.e., of cheats and pilferers. Witness the definition of them in Ducange and the curious etchings of them by Callot. The engraver does not represent them in a more favourable light than the lexicographer, for, besides his inimitable delineations of their dissolute manner of living, he has accompanied his plates with verses, which are very far from celebrating their honesty. It appears from many preceding allusions that the modern artifices in practice among this class of persons date somewhat far back. We find in the old ballad of "The brave English Gipsey," that the still familiar trick of dyeing the face with walnut-juice was in vogue in the time of Charles I. :

"Our dye is not in vaine;
For we do dye in graine:

The walnut-tree supplies our lacke;
What was made faire, we can make
blacke."

The whole piece is curious, and worthy of perusal, as it shews that the gipsy has always led a pretty similar kind of existence in this country, employing the same

shifts, and known by the same characteristics. The ballad was an imitation of one written on the same plan under the title of "The Spanish Gipsy."

The late Dr. Diamond, of Twickenham, told me that when he was a boy, a gipsy chief died in his neighbourhood, and over the place of interment his followers laid a black coffin-shaped stone of peculiar appearance; and it was their practice every year to come and sit in a circle round the stone, as a mark of homage to the departed. So lately as September, 1894, in the Chapelry of Withernsea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, after the death of "Fiddler Jack," his clothes and effects were burnt, to prevent any dispute among his relatives, who had to begin again, and buy their own belongings; and a second motive was that the widow might not be wooed for the sake of her property. Antiquary, November, 1894.

The subjoined paragraph in a newspaper of the 19th Nov. 1903, seems barely credible:-The effects of the Queen of the Boswell tribe of Gipsies, who died and was buried in Falkirk last week, have been destroyed at the gipsy encampment in accordance with a native custom of the tribe, which is invariably followed. The goods destroyed were of the value of £150, including five bags full of valuable costumes, a solid silver George III. tea set, antique china, silver teaspoons and forks. The caravan of the deceased, which cost £130, is also to be destroyed by fire.

In the present editor's boyhood there was a song in common use, of which he remembers one stanza:

66

Hark, hark, the dogs do bark;
The gipsies are coming to town;
Some in rags, and some in jags,
And some in velvet gown."

Twiss, in his "Travels," gives the following account of them in Spain: "They are very numerous about and in Murcia, Cordova, Cadiz, and Ronda. The race of these vagabonds is found in every part of Europe; the French call them Bohemiens, the Italians Zingari, the Germans Zigeunen, the Dutch Heydenen (Pagans), the Portuguese Siganos, and the Spaniards Gitanos, in Latin Cingari. Their language, which is peculiar to themselves, is everywhere so similar, that they undoubtedly are all derived from the same source. They began to appear in Europe in the 15th century, and are probably a mixture of Egyptians and Ethiopians. The men are all thieves, and the women libertines. They follow no certain trade, and have no fixed religion. They do not enter into the order of society, wherein they are only tolerated. It is supposed there are upwards of 40,000 of them in Spain, great

numbers of whom are inn-keepers in the villages and small towns, and are everywhere fortune-tellers. In Spain they are not allowed to possess any lands, or even

By this, sens we see slouth must breede a scab,

Best sticke to the tone out of hand, hab or nab."

themselves, stroll in troops about the country, and bury their dead under water. They are contented if they can procure food by showing feats of dexterity, and only pilfer to supply themselves with the trifles they want; so that they never render themselves liable to any severer chastisement than whipping for having stolen chickens, linen, &c. Most of the men have a smattering of physic and surgery, and are skilled in tricks performed by sleight of hand. The foregoing account is partly extracted from le Voyageur François, vol. xvi. but the assertion that they are all so abandoned as that author says, is too general." In the "Pall Mall Gazette," 1869, it was stated that the Pope went out of Rome to bless some Bohemians, encamped on the outskirts of the city, and inspected their quarters.

See upon the subject, Pasquier, "Recherches de la France," p. 392; "Dictionnaire des Origines, v. Bohe miens"; De Pauw, "Recherches sur les Egyptiens," tom. i. p. 169; Camerarius, "Horæ Subseciva"; "Gent. Mag.", vol. liii. p. 1009; ibid. vol. lvii. p. 897. "Antiquarian Repertory," ed. 1807, vol. iii. p. 375-9; Borrow's Bible in Spain" and Gipsies in Spain," &c.

Hab-Nab. The exposition offered by Isaac Reed seems most consonant with truth. It occurs in a note upon that passage in "Twelfth Night," where a character speaking of a duellist says, "His incensement at this moment is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death, and sepulchre; hob, nob, is his word; give't or take't." In Anglo-Saxon, habban is to have, and næbban to want. May it not therefore be explained in this sense, as signifying, "Do you chuse a glass of wine, or would you rather let it An even earlier author has the alone?" following passage:

"Where wooers hoppe in and out, long

time may bryng Him that hoppeth best, at last to have the ryng.

I hoppyng without for a ringe of a rush, And while I at length debate and beate the bushe,

There shall steppe in other men, and catch the burdes,

And by long time lost in many vaine wurdes.

Betwene these two wives, make slouth speede confounde

While betweene two stooles my tayle goe to the ground.

of a Tub':

'I put it

Even to your Worship's bitterment hab nab

I shall have a chance o' the dice for't, I hope.'"

And Malone adds a passage from Holinshed: "The citizens in their rage shot habbe or nabbe, at random." In Harington's "Epigrams," book iv., ep. 91, we read:

"Not of Jack Straw, with his rebellious

Whom London's

bravely slew

worthy Maior SO

With dudgeon dagger's honourable stab." In "The New Courtier," a ballad, preserved in "Le Prince 'Amour," 1660, we

find hab nab thus introduced :

"I write not of religion

For (to tell you truly) we have none.
If any me to question call,

With pen or sword, hab nab's the word,
Have at all."

It is said of the quack astrologer: "He writes of the weather hab nab, and as the toy takes him, chequers the year with foul and fair." So we perceive that the true sense of the expression was gradually forgotten. On the other hand, in Appius and Virginia, 1575 (Hazlitt's Dodsley, iv., 127), we have:

"There is no more ways, but hap or hap not " Hackin. Hackin, a large sort of sausage, being a portion of the cheer provided for Christmas festivities, from to hack or chop, hackstock being still a chopNares ping-block in the Scotish dialect." Gloss., 1859, in v. In "Round about our Coal-Fire" (circâ 1730) I find the following account of the usual diet and drink of this season, with other curious particulars : "An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, i.e., on Christmas Day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and the black-jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmegg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by day-break, or else two young men must take the maiden (i.e., the cook), by the arms, and run her

round the market-place till she is ashamed or her laziness."

Haddock. Pennant tells us that, "On each side beyond the gills of a haddock is a large black spot. Superstition assigns this mark to the impression St. Peter left with his finger and thumb, when he took the tribute out of the mouth of a fish of this species, which has been continued to the whole race of haddocks ever since that miracle." Zoology," vol. iii., p. 182, edit. 1776.

66

But superstitious haddock, which

appear

With marks of Rome, St. Peter's finger here."

Haddock has spots on either side, which are said to be marks of St. Peter's fingers, when he catched that fish for the tribute.' "Metellus his dialogues," &c., 1693, p.

57:

"O superstitious dainty, Peter's fish, How com'st thou here to make so godly dish?"

Ibid.

Haddon or Hardwicke, Co. Derby, Headless Steeds of. The superstitious notion that a coach drawn by headless steeds, and driven by a headless coachman, haunted this locality, appears to have been common to Parsloes in Essex, and several other places. The late Mr. Thoms, under the nom de plume of Ambrose Merton, wrote a letter to the Athenæum about 1857 on the subject. A correspondent of the same paper, replying to Thoms, enquired whether the neighbourhood of Haddon or of Hardwicke was still visited by the phantom coach. Comp. Allies' Antiquities of Worcestershire, 1856, p. 462.

Haggs. There is sometimes an appearance of phosphorus upon the manes of horses or men's hair (flammæ lambentes), called "Haggs." Blount says,

Hags are said to be made of sweat or other some vapour issuing out of the head a not unusual sight among us when we ride by night in summer time. They are extinguished like flames by shaking the horses' manes; but I believe rather it is only a vapour reflecting light, but fat and sturdy, compacted about the manes of horses, or men's hair." Hyll, in his Contemplation of Mysteries (1568), sign. E 2, speaking of "the fire cleaving and hanging on the parts of men and beasts," observes: "This impression for troth is prodigious without any phisicke cause expressing the same when as the flame or fire compasseth about anye persons heade. And this straunge wonder and sight doth signifie the royal assaultes of mightie monarchies, and kinges, the governments at the Emperie, and other matters wor

thie memory, of which the Phisicke Causes sufficient cannot be demonstrated. Seeing then such fyers or lightes are, as they wer, counterfets or figures of matters to come, it sufficiently appeareth, that those not rashely do appeare or showe but by Gods holy will and pleasure sent, that they maye signifie some rare matter to men. This light doth Virgill write of in the seconde Booke of Eneados of Ascanius, which had a like flame burning without harme on his heade. Also Livius in his of Servius Tullius, a childe who, sleeping first Book, and Valerius Maximus reporte heade and burned rounde about the heade on bedde, such a flame appeared on his without harme, to the wonder of the beholders: which sight pronounced after his ripe age the comming unto royall Estate." He devotes another section to the consideration of the question: "What is to be thought of the flame of fyre, which cleaveth to the heares of the heade and to the heares of beastes?" He says here: "Experience witnesseth, that the fyre do cleave manye times to the heades and eares of beastes, and often times also to the heades and shoulders of men ryding and going on foote. For the exhalations dispearsed by the ayre, cleave to the heares of horses, and garments of men which of the lightnesse doe so ascend, and by the heate kindled. Also this is often caused when men and other beastes by a vehement and swift motion wax very hote, that the sweate, fattie and clammye, is sent forth, which kindled yeldeth this forme. And the like maner in all places, (as afore uttered), as eyther in moyst and clammie places, and marishes, in churchyards, cloysters, kitchins, under galosses, valleys, and other places, where many deade bodies are laide, doe such burning lightes often appeare. The reason is that, in these places the earth continually breatheth forth fatte fumes, grosse and clammy, which come forth of dead bodyes: and when the fume doth continually issue forth, then is the same kindled by the labouring heate, or by the smiting togither: even as out of two flint stones smitten togither fyre is gotten. To conclude, it appeareth that such fyres are seene in moyst kitchins, sinckes, or guttours, and where the orfall of beastes killed are thrown or in such places most commonly are woont to be seene. Such fires cleaving, doe marveylously amase the fearfull. Yet not all fires which are seene in the night are perfite fiers in that many have a kinde without a substaunce and heate, as those which are the delusions of the devill, well knowne to be the Prince of the World, and flyeth about in the ayre." In a work already cited, occurs an account "of flames that appear upon the hairs of men and beasts, their cause. These are some