The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

The Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary.
The Slang Dictionary. One vol., pp. 305. Com.
piled, Edited, and Published by John Camden
Hotten, of 74 and 75, Piccadilly.
It is something to have produced a volume worthy
of being entitled, as above, "The Supplement to
Johnson's Dictionary." This is precisely what Mr
Hotten has done in this new edition of his Slang
Dictionary. The volume, as it now stands, is not
simply A Supplement, it is emphatically THE
Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary. It is, in
other words, an accumulation of the very latest and,
certainly, all of them most remarkable importations
into the language. It marksan epoch in the growth of
our mother-tongue. As what we may venture to call
A supplement even to this supplement, another and
kindred compilation is announced, we are rejoiced
to observe, by this ingenious and energetic biblio-
polist, as in active preparation—a work, namely,
in which are to be collected together all the
idiomatic phrases not capable of being accurately in-
cluded within the compass of what affects to be at
moat simply, what it calls itself, that is to say, a
Dictionary. Within this later compilation, we may
hope to see embalmed in the amber of the results
of Mr Hotten's eccentric researches, such whimsical
little lingual flies and straws and shreds,now floating
idly and wildly about in colloquial discourse, as—
let us here say (in order that we may give the latest
possible illustration of what we are alluding to)-
-there in Franca, here in England—" How's your
poor feet P" and As to vu Lambert? What we
have to do with, here, is—not the idiomatic talk,
but the Slang of co,versation. As Mr Hotten's coins
prehensive title-page has it—Vulgar Words, Street
Phrases, Fast' Expressions, whether of High or
Low Societ y—many of them words with their Etymo-
logy—a few of them, even,with their History Traced.
Briefly to express it—What is in common use, much
that has long been in common use, and yet words,
phrases, expressions, Slang in point of fact never
hitherto included in a dictionary. Oddly but
significantly—and so far also it may be allowed,
appropriately to put into a rhymed couplet the fact
we are now insisting upon as the distinguishing
mark, and for that matter, also, it might be said, the
distinctive merit of The Dictionary here under no-
tice—
Slang words, familiar to each daily talker,

Yet words disdained by Johnson, Webster—Walker
Grateful though we are to Mr Hotten for what he
has thus already accomplished, if we were to main-
tain that his book as a Slang Dictionary—as the
only Slang Dictionary at all worthy of the name,
is complete, we should, in so writing of it, be
writing of it extravagantly. It is an immense ad-
vance upon its predecessor. It is as much of
an advance upon that predecessor, as a young
oak tree in full leaf, and pendulous at every bough
and at every twig with acorns, is an advance
upon the sapling just budding greenly through the
turf. Five years ago that sapling first sprouted. It
was entitled "The Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant
and Vulgar Words," and so entitled, it appeared
anonymously as a little book issued by A London
Antiquary. That work is combined with the
present. It comprised within it words—slang,
cant, vulgar words—to the number of barely
three thousand. Its successor, " The Slang Dic
tionary," here lying before us—the vigorous young
oak-tree grown from that acorn—includes within
it words of that character, not simply to the num-
ber of three, but, very nearly, of ten thousand ! It
needs hardly to be said, when we have said that
—that during the last five years Mr Holten, in the
compilation of this one work alone, to say nothing
of several other notable books that have, within
the samerinterval, come directly from his own hands,
not merely as publisher but as compiler also and
as editor, one or two of them, even as author
—it need hardly be added, we would say, that Mr
Hotten, during these last five years, upon this
one work alone, has indeed been industrious! The
Slang he has here collected together is Slang of all
sorts. It is for the most part very much like
young Dorrit—" of the streets streety." It is
Slang from all classes, and from all professions.
Nobs and Snobs, Tars and Felons—otherwise to
put it "High, Low, Jeck, and the Game !"—have
unconsciously been contributors to the work of our
ingenious Lexicographer. No matter whence drawn,
everything in the shape of Slang has been grist to
Mr Hotten's mill : has been therein ground up and
worked into samples, and arranged alphabetically.
Slang has been regarded, here, ab initio. Mr
Hotten begins, in other words, with the bey
ginning. At the outset of his introductory
chapter, while giving us " A Short History
tf Slang," he sets out upon his inquiry, not
from one of the crossings in Seven Dials, not
from a doorstep in Grab-street, but (absolutely !)
from Babylon and Nineveh ! Thence he comes
down, from those far•off cities, to our own, to the
one in the midst of which we are now living. From
that remote epoch he brings ne to now-a-days—scat-
tering illustrative anecdotes to the right hand and to
the left, as he advances from the past to the present,
as he descends from the Ancient, until he finds him-
self in the very heart and thick and tumult of the
Modern Babylon. Slang of all kinds we have said,
and we would here insist upon it, comes to Mr.
Hutton alike acceptably—whether it be Fashionable
or Parliamentary, Military or Nautical, Swell•
Slang or Street-Slang, University or Religious,
Legal or Literary, Artistic or Theatrical, the
Slang of workmen, or the Slang of shopkeepers,
equivalents for oaths or terms for drunkenness. A
mere moment's reflection will be sufficient to re-
mind any one of the extraordinary choice there is,
of all those kinds of Slang. Take one by way of
example, the one last mentioaed, the Slang expres-
sions, that is, of the ♦ery simple and vulgar fact of
Drunkenness ! Fuddled ! Cut ! Screwed ! Fresh !
Lush; ! Swipey ! Slowed l Sewed up! On the
Ran Tan! With the Sun in his Eyes ! Three Sheets
in the Wind ! Half Seas Over ! Intosticated in
regard to Liquor ! All Mops and Brooms ! and
the like—almost one might say—ad ityinitum ! Yet
it is from this whirling, floating, shifting, varying
Atmosphere of Slang thus surrounding us in all
directions, Slang that we are living and breathing
among without hardly knowing it, Slang
that we are constantly drinking in at our
ears, and almost as often (even the most fas-
tidious talker amongst us), unwittingly articu-
lating in the free-and easy give•and•take of con•
versation ! It is from this varying, shifting,
incoherent Chaos of Slang, that this laborious and
conscientious Supplementer of Johnson, has had to
gather in his materials before sifting them and
arranging them! How he has already contrived to
accomplish what he has here accomplished, and
accomplished too so very successfully,, is a perfect
marvel to us. That occasionally in his definitions
he should be in error—is a thing, surely, to say
the least of it, inevitable. Again, that he should
have omitted, unintentionally, words that—if they
bad but come opportunely to his reoolleetion—he

himself would have been the most desirous of in-
eluding in his Slang Dictionary, is, assuredly, no
less of a self-evident proposition than that dictum
of the maid=servant, according to Sam Weller,
when she called the cat's meat man no gentle-
man ! We will specify for our author's satisfaction
(we are quite certain of that)—far more than for
the satisfaction of any one else—a few of what we
have but just now referred to, as oversights in the
way of omitted Slang Words that have been looked
for by us in vain in Mr Hotten's otherwise wonder-
ful Slang Dictionary. Par exemple—we look in
vain here for any mention of "an Old Square-
Toes." Not a word is there here, again, in
its alphabetical position, about that felon's
vade mecum absurdly called upon the locus a
non lucendo principle," a Life-Preserver."
Nothing is there here about that amiable little
winter pastime for frozen-out burglare—garotting.
As a familiar abreviation of the Prime Minister's
name, Pam is duly recorded. But—while the pet
name of the Leader on the Government side of the
House of Commons is thus specified—no mention at
all is made of the still more widely known abbre-
viation or pet name of the Leader of Her Majesty's
Opposition, to wit " Dizzy!" If " Pam"—why not
" Dizzy ?" Naturally enough, ridiculous street
cries such as " Does your mother know
you're out ?" or " Has your Aunt sold her mangle ?"
or "You don't lodge here, Mr Fergusson !"—what-
ever those sapient remarks may mean, or howsoever
they may have sprung into existence so as to pass
current among the million—Naturally enough, we
say, ridiculous street cries such as those find no place
in Mr Hotten's Slang Dictionary I Being reserved by
him, we may presume, for commemoration in his
kindred and congenial work—a work designed
to be—in continuation of, we had almost
put it, at any rate in direct companion.
ship and association with, The Slang Dic-
tionary. How comes it, however, that in the pre-
sent comprehensive compilation of vulgar words
and low phrases, and so forth, we find no record of
the homely and by this time strictly vernacular
ejaculation "Latek-a-Daisy! ' The drollest employ-
ment of which, Mr Rotten might, on introducing
it in his next edition, indicate by a line culled, as
an illustrative quotation, from one of the very
funniest of the comic poems of Tom Hood. Mon.
tioning the name of which great humorist, we would
at once suggest an erratum for p. 202 of" The Slang
Dictionary" where, to tho illustrative lines apropos
to the sea-phrase about "piping his eye," the bibio-
grapher has, instead of the name of Tom Hood, put
"Old Song" at the end of what ought to have run
more correctly thus—
" And first of all he eyed his pipe,
And then he piped his eye."
Still more strange is it to find, as we do, misquoted
here at p. 188 of " The Slang Dictionary," the very
opening lines of the very finest Slang Song or Cant
Ditty that was ever penned—to wit Harrison Ales-
worth's famous " Romany Chant" from Rook wood
(sung afterwards to Rod well's music in the drama-
tised version of the same great romance-writer's Jack
Shepherd) " Nix my dolly pals fake away I" Among
familiar Slang words, again, there is no mention of
a holiday term in very common use that we ought
to have found here alphabetically recorded in
" The Slang ,Dictionary"—meaning the phrase of
an outing!" Reverting to Hood for a moment,
as conspicuous among the fast.becoming classic au-
thorities of Slang, we would fain have had Mr Hot-
ten illustrate from a sentence towards the close of
Hood's wonderfully droll account of the dancing of
the Tarantula, the word so emphatically expressive
of the Flushing out of existence of the madden.
ing spider, under the pancake-making foot of the
dancing mayor, a word that might certainly take its
place in this Dictionary, meaning that almost
we had said succulent word—" Squelch." Mr
Hotten, moreover, has made no mention, at all
events in its alphabetical place, of any such Slang
word or phrase as—" a regular Poser," as the
" rah'' of society, as a dress that is describable
as " skimpy,” as (Americanisms, these last, we con-
jecture) " Slogdologized" or given in its full seequi-
pedalian form" Circumslogdologized." Besides these
and a few other words also in their way sufficiently
familiar, there is one especially that we would hero
particularise—namely, "gumptious" a word that if
only Mr Hotten had included it in "The Slang
Dictionary " he might have authenticated by a me-
morable passage in Sir Bulwer Lytton's most highly
elaborated novel, perhaps the finest of all his novels,
the one he has emphatically dubbed "My Novel"—
namely, where the Innkeeper draws—not a pot of
beer, but—a very notable distinction "Bumptious
is bumptious, and gumptious is gumptious ! Now,
our Beadle is bumptious ; but Mrs Avenel is gimp.
tioue !" We can only attribute it to an oversight on
the part of our otherwise most vigilant collector,
here, into his bibliographical or etymological wallet
of hitherto "unconsidered trifles," that whereas he
jots down in his Slang Dictionary "'Parson's Nose,'
the hind part of a goose "—he omits to mention in
its turn, as he ought to have done, pare passu,
what he evidently forgot to mention—the "Pops's
Eye," meaning, of course, the central morsel of fat
in a leg of mutton! While we find him mention.
ing, moreover, at p. 128, "Pecksniff" as another
term (ever since Marten Chuzzlewit) for "a hypo-
critical rascal;" and rather oddly, too, at p. 176,
"Marchioness," as (since the cld Curiosity Shop)
a word synonymous with " Maid-of-all. work "
we can't conjecture how it possibly comes to pass
that on p. 140 he makes no mention whatever, in its
alphabetical place, of what we have long since come
to designate familiarly "a regular Gamp"—meaning
thereby, according to our intention at the moment of
speaking, a fat old dowdy of a monthly nurse, or a
very large, bulgy, loosely tied cotton or gingham
umbrella! It is a source of surprise to us, again,
that among the list of his authorities upon the
subject-matter of his Dictionary, viz„ Slang—
we fied no record whatever of a name referred to
nevertheless, again and again, in the body of the
work—namely, that of the great arch-humorist the
creator of Pecksniff, of Mrs Gamp, and of that
most wonderful myth in all fiction, that most
delectable fiction in a fiction, the immortal
though wholly non-existent Mrs Harris. Ouce
even in the text of his work we find Mr Hotten,
unwittingly according to Mr. Sala (in his
" Gaslight and Daylight"), the credit of giving
authority for the use of a word that Cuarles
Dickens a good many years previously had employed,
and had therefore, as the phrase is, rendered classic,
by introducing it into one of his delightful "Sketches
by Boz"—to the best of our recollection it is in the
account of " Miss Jemima Evans and the Eagle"—
the designation, that is, of an " ggerawator,"
meaning any lock of hair twisted into shape upon
the forehead, and not simply as here mentioned by
Mr. Hotten on the long-after-date authority of
Mr Salts, "the greasy lock of hair in vogue
among costermongers." We have been thus lengthy
in the particularity of our exceptions to what.
over blemishes (whether in the way of omission or
of commission) have become apparent to us upon a
careful scrutiny of the pages of Mr Hotten's other--
wise admirable, we will even say, of his, all things
considered, wonderfully complete and wonderfully
exact " Slang Dictionary"—because the taking exe
ceptions here and there to his labours, precisely in
this way, we conceive to be about the very best
tribute we could possibly offer to him as a con-
scientious and laborious lexicographer. It is
a book—even as it now stands—absolutely unri-
valled. It forms a notable contribution towards
the accumulation of important materials belong-
ing to the history of our language, we will even
go beyond that and say, to the history of our
national literature. " The Slang Dictionary," as it
has here been compiled, and edited, and published by
Mr Rotten, of Piccadilly—industriously compiled,
sagaciously edited and elegantly published—is a
book entitled to an honourable, and, what is still
more, to an acceesible place upon the bookshelves
of any and every liberary--as indeed might safely
have been predicated of a volume so remarkable
that we have hesitated not to designate it as a
" Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary."

Walker and Waiter's English Pronouncing Die
tionary. Edited by John Longrnuir, LL.D
One Vol. pp. 618. Gregg,
As a Popular Edition of a thoroughly good Eng-
lish Pronouncing Dictionary, this handsome volume
can hold its own against any competitor. The paper
upon which it is printed, no doubt, might /AV§ been

Nicker, but then, in that case, the price of the
work must necessarily have been greater. Again--
the type with which the book is printed might
have been larger, and therefore more easily read-
able, but the volume must ai; the same time also,
by necessity, have become bulkier must
have lost, in other words, one of its
distinguishing merits as an edition, the
merit of compactness. For such as it under-
takes to be, the work is really and truly excellent.
It is cheap, portable, legible, comprehensive, and
most carefully arranged throughout. It is a cam.
bination, in one and the same work, of Walker and
Webster. In other words, it is A Dictionary of
the English language, comprising within it the
Definitions of Webster and the Pronunciation of
Walker. And the two which are thus blended
together form, as the title-page itself takes
occasion to intimate, have been " brought into can`
formity to [with ?] the usages of the present
time." A very considerable number of new words
will be found, moreover, upon a careful el 4
amination of the work, to have been in-
troduced or interpolated. Numerous synony-
mous terms, again, have been in the present
edition very carefully discriminated. The
mere Appendix to the work, it should be added,
is wonderfully valuable as a repertory of informs"
tion, admitting all of it, of ready reference. It
eludes within it, this curious gathering of an ApPen-
dix, Walker's Key to the Pronunciation of Scripture,
Greek, and Latin proper-namee, together with
a vocabulary of Modern Geographical Names,
a Catalogue of Heathen Gods end Goddesses,
explanations of current phrases from various
languages and so forthwith—the whole edited
under the careful supervision of Dr Longa:lair,
formerly of the University of Aberdeen. As an
English Dictionary of conspicuous merit—of a
merit so conspicuous as to entitle it to be regarded
es a philological masterpiEce—this imprint by
Mr Tegg of Dr Longmuir's edition of Walker's Die'
tionary and Webster's Dictionary combined,
is sur®
of winning its way—to what is certainly its due by
right, namela—a wide and lasting popularity.

?he Englishman's Magazine. No. I. Riviogtone•
Almost the only new venture, just ItOW'
among our monthly periodicals, The EngllBl°
man, starts propitiously with the commence-
ment of the New Year. It is remarkable,
even at the first glance, for the variety of the con'
tributions, compacted together within the own'
pass of barely one hundred pages—p. 96 marking
the close of this initial number of The Englishnzao
for Xanuary. Art—Science—Religion—Literature
are the regions penetrated by the Contributors,
Among these contributors, most of whom are anony-
mous, there are noticeable several writers already
ranked among the number of our popular favourites.
Professor Ansted, for example, and the author of
" The Uentlo Life." The charming essayist last
mentioned leads off a series to be entitled " Life's
Equipage," with an eminently thoughtful and
:I
suggestive disquisition "On Purpose in Life.
Toujours la Vie it is always with her—but we on
never have too many of her meditations upon that
exhaustless theme. Professor Ansted, in like manner;
begins aseriesof papers with his present contributions
o
—a series to be entitled " On theE 17th's Habitatioo.
There is a social argument upon the Causes and
Moral Effects of Strikes. There is a genial, se"
Bible paper in reference to the premature closing Of
the adventurous life of Captain Speke. There ar°
also four poetical contributions in the number
rather a novelty, as magazines go nowadays'
Perhaps the best of these four is the first of them--
the musical stanz is by Christina Rosetti. "The
Perplexities of Monsieur Bornand" will be read
with profound interest by the seekers after
innocent amusement at this se2son of story telling
As to the paper on " The Position and Prospects of
the Church," if we merely quote from the closing
sentences of it, not one syllable need be added in
the way of comment. For, assuredly, never was
any argument advanced with more serious or
more complaisant deliberation upon the paradoxical
principle ex Jima dare lucent. Ex. gr. this carne
closing sentence :
" Containing within herself the essence of what the
Catholic Church deems essential to existence, she must 00
day command the respect and confidence of the two great
branches of the Eastern and Western Church : while the
various Protestant communities, now split into endless
sects and parties, will regard the Church of England as 3
centre of unity."
Than which, there, perhaps, never was a more ludl4
CrUILB !WU seguster !