Charge by the bishop is in the British Museum: it is entitled, "A
Charge delivered to the Grand Jury at the Quarter-Sessions held at
Durham, July 16, 1740, concerning engrossing of corn and grain, and the
riots that have been occasioned thereby." 4to., Durham.]

_Huggins and Muggins._--Can any of your readers assign the origin of this
jocular appellation? I would hazard the conjecture, that it may be
corruption of _Hogen Mogen_, High Mightinesses, the style, I believe, of
the States-General of Holland; and that it probably became an expression of
contempt in the mouths of the Jacobites for the followers of William III.,
from whence it has passed to a more general application.

F. K.

Bath.

[HUGGER-MUGGER, says Dr. Richardson, is the common way of writing this
word, from Udal to the present time. No probable etymology, he adds,
has yet been given. Sir John Stoddart (_Ency. Metropolitana_, vol i. p.
120.) has given a long article on this word, which concludes with the
following remarks:--"The last etymology that we shall mention is from
the Dutch title, {342} _Hoog Moogende_ (High Mightinesses), given to
the States-General, and much ridiculed by some of our English writers;
as in _Hudibras_:

'But I have sent him for a token
To your Low-country, _Hogen Mogen_.'

It has been supposed that _hugger-mugger_, corrupted from _Hogen
Mogen_, was meant in derision of the secret transactions of their
Mightinesses; but it is probable that the former word was known in
English before the latter, and upon the whole it seems most probable
that _hugger_ is a mere intensitive form of _hug_, and that _mugger_ is
a reduplication of sound with a slight variation, which is so common in
cases of this kind."]

_Balderdash._--What is the meaning and the etymology of "balderdash?"

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

[Skinner suggests the following etymology: "BALDERDASH, _potus mixtus_,
credo ab A.-S. _bald_, audax, _balder_, audacior vel audacius, et
nostro _dash_; _miscere_, q.d. _potus temere mixtus_." Dr. Jamieson
explains it as "foolish and noisy talk. Islandic, _bulldur_, stultorum
balbuties." Dr. Ogilvie, however, has queried its derivation from the
"Spanish _balda_, a trifle, or _baldonar_, to insult with abusive
language; Welsh, _baldorz_, to prattle. Mean, senseless prate; a jargon
of words; ribaldry; anything jumble