or EGYPTIANS, an outlandish tribe of vagabonds, who disguise themselves in uncouth habits, smearing their faces and bodies, and framing to themselves a canting language, wander up and down, and, under pretence of telling fortunes, curing diseases, &c. abuse the common people, trick them of their money, and steal all that they can come at.

They are a strange kind of commonwealth among themselves of wandering impostors and jugglers, who made their first appearance in Germany about the beginning of the 16th century. Munster, it is true, who is followed and relied upon by Spelman, fixes the time of their first appearance to the year 1417; but as he owns that the first whom he ever saw were in 1529, it is probably an error of the press for 1517; especially as other historians inform us, that when Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in the year 1517, several of the natives refused to submit to the Turkish yoke, and revolted under one Zinganeus; whence the Turks call them Zinganees; but being at length surrounded and banished, they agreed to disperse in small parties all over the world, where their supposéd skill in the black art gave them an universal reception in that age of superstition and credulity. In the compass of a very few years they gained such a number of idle proflytes (who imitated their language and complexion, and took themselves to the same arts of chirimony, begging, and pilfering), that they became troublesome, and even formidable, to most of the states of Europe. Hence they were expelled from France in the year 1560, and from Spain in 1591. And the government of England took the alarm much earlier: for in 1530 they are described by Stat. 22 Hen. VIII. c. 10, as "an outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor fear of merchandize, who have come into this realm, and gone from thire to thire, and place to place, in great companies, and used great fubtle, and crafty means to deceive the people; bearing them in hand that they by palmistry could tell mens and womans fortunes; and so many times by craft and subtilty have deceived the people of their money, and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies." Wherefore they are directed to avoid the realm, and not to return under pain of imprisonment, and forfeiture of their goods and chattels; and upon their trials for any felony which they may have committed, they shall not be intitled to a jury de mediatæ linguae. And afterwards it is enacted, by statutes 1st and 2d Ph. and Mary, c. 4. and 5th Eliz. c. 20, that if any person shall be imported into the kingdom, the importer shall forfeit 40l. And if the Egyptians themselves remain one month in the kingdom, or if any person being 14 years old, whether natural-born subject or stranger, which hath been seen or found in the fellowship of such Egyptians, or which hath disguised him or herself like them, shall remain in the same one month at one or several times, it is felony without benefit of clergy. And Sir M. Hale informs us, that at one Suffolk affizes, no less than 13 persons were executed upon these statutes a few years before the reformation. But, to the honour of our national humanity, there are no instances more modern than this of carrying these laws into practice; and the last fanguinary act is itself now repealed by 23 Geo. III. c. 54.

In Scotland they seem to have enjoyed some share of indulgence; for a writ of privy seal, dated 1594, 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 afflicting Faw and his adherents to return home. There is a like writ in his favour from Mary Q. of Scots 1553, and in 1554 he obtained a pardon for the murder of Nunan Small. So that it appears lie had staid long in Scotland, and perhaps some of the time in England; and from him this kind of itrolling people might receive the name of Faw Gang, which they still retain.

A very circumstantial account of this singular race of vagrants has been lately given in an express Inquiry concerning them, written in German by H. M. G. Grellman, and translated by Mr Raper. It is incredible to think how this regular swarm of banditti has spread itself over the face of the earth. They wander about in Asia, in the interior parts of Africa, and, like locusts, have over-run most of the European nations. In the reigns of Henry VIII. and queen Elizabeth, as we have seen, they were set up as a mark of general persecution in England; yet their numbers do not appear to have much diminished. Spain is supposed by Mr Twiss to contain 40,000 of these vagrants; but by others 60,000; and by some even double that number. They are less numerous in France in consequence of the strictness of the police. In Italy they abound, especially in the dominions of the church, on account of the bad police and the prevalence of superstition, which permit and entice them to deceive the ignorant. They are scattered, though not in great numbers, through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia; but their chief population is in the south-east parts of Europe, which seem to be the general rendezvous of the gypsy nation. At a moderate computation Europe contains more than seven hundred thousand of these vagabonds.—For near four centuries they have wandered through the world; and in every region, and among every people, whether barbarous or civilised, they have continued equally unchanged by the lapse of time, the variation of climate, and the force of example. Their singular physiognomy and particular manners are the same in every country. Their swarthy complexion receives no darker shade from the burning sun of Africa, nor any fairer tincture from the temperate climates of Europe; they contract no additional laziness in Spain, nor acquire any new industry in England; in Turkey they behold the mosque and the crescent with equal indifference as they do the reformed and the catholic church in Europe. In the neighbourhood of civilised life they continue barbarous; and, beholding around them cities and settled inhabitants, they live in tents or holes in the earth, and wander from place to place as fugitives and vagabonds.

They are passionately fond of ornaments; in which however they consult neither propriety nor constancy; they will wear an old laced coat, while the rest of the garments scarcely hang together. In Hungary and Transylvania, their summer habitations are tents; their winter ones holes 10 or 12 feet deep in the earth, except such as keep inns, or exercise trades. They are fond of plate, particularly silver cups, which they bury under the hearth for security. Their principal occupations are, smith's work, or tinkers, or wooden ware, and horse-dealing; and in Hungary and Transylvania they are executioners of criminals, flayers of dead beasts, and washers of gold. The women deal in old cloaths, prostitution, wanton dances, and fortune-telling. Notwithstanding these occupations, the majority of this people are lazy, beggars, and thieves. They bring up their children to their own professions, and are very fond of them. They have few disorders, except the measles and small-pox, and weaknesses in their eyes, occasioned by the smoke, and live to an advanced age, with a strong attachment to life. Their physic is saffron in their soups, or bleeding.

These people, however, appear to be distinguished by different singularities in different countries. At least in the following circumstances the German gypsies differ widely from those we commonly meet with in England. It is a great feast to them, our author says, whenever they can procure a roast of cattle that died of any distemper. It is all one to them, whether it be carrion of a sheep, hog, cow, or other beast, horse-flesh only excepted; they are so far from being disgusted with it, that to eat their fill of such a meal, is to them the height of epicurism. When any one censures their taste, or shows surprise at it, they answer, "The flesh of a beast which God kills, must be better than that of one killed by the hand of man." They therefore take every opportunity of getting such dainties. That they take carrion from a layfall, as is affirmed of the gypsies in Hungary, is by no means certain, any more than that they eat horse-flesh. But if a beast out of an herd dies, and they find it before it becomes rotten and putrid; or if a farmer gives them notice of a cow dead, they proceed, without hesitation, to get possession of this booty. Their favourite object is animals that have been destroyed by fire; therefore, whenever a conflagration has happened, either in town or country, the next day the gypsies, from every neighbouring quarter, assemble and draw the suffocated half consumed beasts out of the ashes. Men, women, and children, in troops, are extremely busy, joyfully carrying the flesh home to their dwelling-places; they return several times, provide themselves plentifully with this roast meat, and gluttonize in their huts as long as their noble fare lasts.

The gypsies have, at least in Transylvania, a sort of regular government, rather nominal than real or effective. They have their leaders or chiefs, whom they distinguish by the Sclavonian title, Waywode. To this dignity every person is eligible who is of a family descended from a former waywode; but the preference is generally given to those who have the best clothes and the most wealth; who are of a large stature, and not past the meridian of life.—Of religion, however, they have no sense; though, with their usual cunning and hypocrisy, they profess the established faith of every country in which they live. They also speak the languages of the respective countries, yet have a language of their own; from whence derived, authors differ. The only science which they have attained is music. Their poetry is ungrammatical indecent rhyme.

Their general character and capacities are thus described: Imagine people of a childish way of thinking; their minds filled with raw, undigested conceptions; guided more by sense than reason; using understanding and reflection so far only as they promote the gratification of any particular appetite; and you have a perfect sketch of the gypsies' character. They are lively, uncommonly loquacious and chattering; fickle in the extreme, consequently inconstant in their pursuits; faithless to every body, even their own kind; void of the least emotion of gratitude, frequently rewarding benefits with the most insidious malice. Fear makes them flatteringly compliant when under subjection; but having nothing to apprehend, like other timorous people, they are cruel. Desire of revenge often causes them to take the most desperate resolutions. To such a degree of violence is their fury sometimes excited, that a mother has been known, in the excess of passion, to take her small infant by the feet, and therewith strike the object of her anger, when no other instrument has readily presented itself. They are so addicted to drinking, as to sacrifice what is most necessary to them, that they may feast their palate with spirits. They have, too, what one would little expect, an enormous share of vanity, which shows itself in their fondness for fine clothes, and their gait and deportment when dressed in them. One might imagine that this pride would have the good effect to render a gypsy cautious not to be guilty of such crimes as subject him to public shame; but here comes in the levity of character, for he never looks to the right nor to the left in his transactions. In an hour's time he forgets that he is just untied from the whipping post. But their pride is grounded on mere idle conceit, as appears plainly from their making it a point of honour to abuse their companions, and put on a terrible appearance in the public market, where they are sure to have many spectators; they cry out, make a violent noise, challenge their adversary to fight, but very seldom any thing comes of it. Thus the gypsy seeks honour, of which his ideas coincide very little with those of other people, and sometimes deviate entirely from propriety.

"Nothing (continues our author) can exceed the unrestrained depravity of manners existing among these people, I allude particularly to the other sex. Unchecked by any idea of shame, they give way to every desire. The mother endeavours, by the most scandalous arts, to train up her daughter for an offering to femininity; and this is scarce grown up before she becomes the seducer of others. Laziness is so prevalent among them, that were they to subsist by their own labour only, they would hardly have bread for two of the seven days in the week. This indolence increases their propensity to stealing and cheating, the common attendants on idleness. They seek to avail themselves of every opportunity to satisfy their lawless desires. Their universal bad character therefore for fickleness, insincerity, ingratitude, revenge, malice, rage, depravity, laziness, knavery, thievishness, and cunning, though not deficient in capacity and cleverness, render these people of no use in society, except as soldiers to form marauding parties. Persons in their company, and under their disguise, have formed dangerous designs against cities and countries. They have been banished from almost all civilized states, in their turn, except Hungary and Transylvania, and to little purpose. Our author is of opinion, that as Turkey would allow them toleration, it would be better for the European states to take some steps for cultivating and civilizing them, and making them useful. But while they are insensible of religion and strongly attached to their own manners, it is to be feared the attempt will be impracticable. This appears from a very intelligent Hungarian lady's experience on the subject, communicated in a letter as follows: 'There are a great number of them on my estates, but I have permitted two families in particular to establish themselves at the place of my own residence, under the express condition that no others shall come here and join them. I took all possible pains to make them reasonable creatures. I set the elder ones to work; the younger ones tend the cattle. I observed that they were more fond of horses than anything else; for which reason I placed a gypsy under each groom. I had their children clothed, that none of them might be running about naked, according to their usual practice. It appeared, however, that custom was become nature with them. The old ones worked diligently so long as anybody stood over them; the moment their back was turned, they all got together in a circle, their legs across, facing the sun, and chattered. Thus they cannot possibly earn more, indeed hardly so much, as would find them bread, although very cheap with us; for the bread I give them does not stand me in half a kreutzer the pound. Even in winter they cannot bear a hat on their head nor shoes on their feet. The boys run like wild things wherever they are sent, either on foot or on horseback; but they spoil horses unmercifully, beat them on the head, jerk the bits in their mouths, so as to make them run down with blood. They cannot be brought by any means whatever to dress horses. Clothe them as you will, they always fall or lose their cloaths. In a word, one cannot but consider them as void of reason; it is really shocking to see even well grown children put whatever they find into their mouths, like infants before they can speak; wherefore they eat everything, even carrion, let it stink never so much. Where a mortality happens among the cattle, there these wretched beings are to be found in the greatest numbers.'

The origin of this people, as we have seen, has been generally believed to be Egyptian; and that belief is as old as their existence in Europe. Thomasius, Salmon the English geographer, and lately Signor Grifelini, have endeavoured to prove it by satisfactory evidence. This theory, however, according to our author, is without foundation. The Egyptian descent of these people, he thinks, is not only destitute of proofs, but the most positive evidence is found to contradict it. Their language differs entirely from the Coptic; and their customs are very different from those of the Egyptians. They are indeed to be found in Egypt; but they wander about there as strangers, and form a distinct people, as in other countries. The expressions of Bellonius are strong and decisive: "No part of the world, I believe, is free from those banditti, wandering about in troops, whom we by mistake call Egyptians and Bohemians." When we were at Cairo, and in the villages bordering on the Nile, we found troops of these roving thieves sitting under palm-trees; and they are esteemed foreigners in Egypt as well as among us."

The Egyptian descent of the gypsies being rejected, our author next endeavours to show that they come from Hindostan. The chief basis of his theory, however, is no other than that very dubious one, a similarity of language. He adds a long vocabulary of the gipsy and the Hindostanic languages; in which, it must be confessed, many words are the same; but many are different. A principal proof which he adduces on this head is from the relation of Captain Szekely von Doba, to whom a printer in 1763 related, that a preacher of the Reformed church, when a student at Leyden, being intimately acquainted with three young Malabar students, took down 1000 of their words, which he fancied corresponded with the gipsy language; and they added, that a tract of land in their island was named Oxigania. He repeated these words to the Raber gypsies, who explained them without trouble or hesitation. This account was published in the Vienna Gazette. Supposing these three young men to be sons of Brahmins, who use the Sanscrit, the common language of Hindostan comes as near to that as modern Italian to pure Latin. The comparison of the two languages takes up above 30 pages; and Mr Grellman thinks it establishes his system. The same opinion is maintained by Mr Marsden, in a paper upon this subject in the 7th volume of the Archeologia. The numerals, however, both in Hindolanic and gipsy, differ greatly as stated by the two authors. And here, as in other such comparisons, one is astonished at the credulity of the comparers of orthoepy and orthography (as a periodical critic observes), which can have no connection in languages with which we are not perfectly familiar, even were both languages reduced to writing by their respective people: how much less, then, where one of the two languages is never reduced to writing, as is the case of the gipsy, but is blended with the language of the country where the clan resides? This appears from the correspondence of several words in all languages with the gipsy. Mr Grellman acknowledges the two gipsy versions of the Lord's Prayer, at different periods, differ so widely, that one would almost be inclined to doubt whether they were really the same language. We think we can discern a few words differently indeed written, but probably pronounced alike. Nor can we, in all the languages in which Chamberlayne gives the Lord's Prayer, perceive the least resemblance to the gipsy name of father, Dade and Dad, except in the Welsh, Taad. In prosecuting his argument, Mr Grellman does not insist on the similarity of colour between the two people, nor on the cowardice common to both, nor on the attachment of the Indians to tents, or letting their children go naked; all these being traits to be met with in other nations: but he dwells on the word Polgar, the name of one of the first gipsy leaders, and of the Hindolanic god of marriage; also on the correspondence between the travelling smiths in the two people, who carry two pair of bellows; the Indian's boy blows them in India, the wife or child of the gipsy in Europe: As if every travelling tinker, in every nation where tinkers travel, had not the same journeymen. In lascivious dances and chiropracy the two people agree; nor are there uncommon in other parts of the globe. The excessive loquacity of the two people is produced as similar; as if no other nations in the world were loquacious. Faint resemblances are, a fondness for saffron, and the intermarrying only with their own people. The last position in the author's theory is, that the gipsies are of the lowest class of Indians, namely, Parias, or, as they are called in Hindolanic, Suders. He compares the manners of this class with those of the gipsies, and enumerates many circumstances in which they agree: some of the comparisons are frivolous, and prove nothing. As an instance of which we may take the following: 'Gipsies are fond of being about horses; the Suders in India likewise, for which reason they are commonly employed as horse-keepers by the Europeans resident in that country.' This reasoning does not prove that the gipsies are Suders, any more than that they are Arabians or Yorkshire farmers.

The objections, however, to which this learned and industrious author's theory is liable, are such as only show it to be by no means satisfactory; but do not prove that it is wrong. It may possibly be right; and upon this supposition the cause of their emigration from their country, he conjectures, not without probability, to be the war of Timur Beg in India. In the years 1408 and 1409 this conqueror ravaged India, and the progress of his army was attended with devastation and cruelty. All who made resistance were destroyed; those who fell into the enemy's hands were made slaves; of these very slaves 100,000 were put to death. As on this occasion an universal panic took place, what could be more natural than that a great number of terrified inhabitants should endeavour to save themselves by flight?—In the last place, the author endeavours to trace the route by which the gipsies came from Hindolanic to Europe; but here he justly acknowledges that all that can be said on the subject is mere surmise; and, upon the whole, after perusing all the preceding details, the reader will probably be of opinion that there still hangs a cloud over the origin of this extraordinary race.