Grose’s

(Francis, generally styled Captain) Cla ical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 8vo. 178-. The much-sought-after First Edition , but containing nothing, as far as I have examined, which is not to be found in the second and third editions. As respects indecency, I find all the editions equally disgraceful. The Museum copy of the first edition is, I suspect, Grose’s own copy, as it contains numerous manuscript additions which afterwards went to form the second edition. Excepting the obscenities, it is really an extraordinary book, and displays great industry, if we cannot speak much of its morality. It is the well from which all the other authors—Duncombe, Caul field, Clarke, Egan, . .—drew their vulgar outpourings, without in the least purifying what they had stolen.