CHAPTER XLI.
THE JOCKEY'S TALE--THIEVES' LATIN--LIBERTIES WITH COIN--THE SMASHER IN PRISON--OLD FULCHER--EVERY ONE HAS HIS GIFT--FASHION OF THE ENGLISH.
"My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one was scragg'd, and the other lagg'd." I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was, for the greater part, unintelligible to me.
"I do not understand much English," said the Hungarian, who, having replenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away; "but, by Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great ignorant Valter Scott puts into the mouth of the folks he calls gypsies." "Something like it, I confess," said I, "though this sounds more genuine than his dialect, which he picked up out of the canting vocabulary at the end of the 'English Rogue,' a book which, however despised, was written by a remarkable genius.

What do you call the speech you were using ?" said I, addressing myself to the jockey.
"Latin," said the jockey, very coolly; "that is, that dialect of it which is used by the light-fingered gentry." "He is right," said the Hungarian; "it is what the Germans call Roth-Welsch: they call it so because there are a great many Latin words in it, introduced by the priests, who, at the time of the Reformation, being too lazy to work, and too stupid to preach, joined the bands of thieves and robbers who prowled about the country.

Italy, as you are aware, is called by the Germans Welschland, or the land of the Welschers; and I may add that Wallachia derives its name from a colony of Welschers which Trajan sent there.

Welsch and Wallack being one and the same word, and tantamount to Latin." "I dare say you are right," said I; "but why was Italy termed Welschland ?" "I do not know," said the Hungarian.
"Then I think I can tell you," said I; "it was called so because the original inhabitants were a Cimbric tribe, who were called Gwyltiad, that is, a race of wild people, living in coverts, who were of the same blood, and spoke the same language as the present inhabitants of Wales.

Welsh seems merely a modification of Gwyltiad.