St. Lucia.
The following curious paragraph in the Post Boy, June 3-5, 1714, seems to have been connected with the Jacobites:
"There are lately arrived here the Dublin Plenipo's. All persons that have any business concerning the Good Old Cause, let 'em repair to Jenny Man's Coffee House at Charing Cross, where they may meet with the said Plenipo's every day of the week except Sundays, and every evening of those days they are to be spoke with at the Kit-Cat Club."
E. G. Ballard.
Jeroboam of Claret, &c. (Vol vii., p.528.).—Is a magnum anything more than a bottle larger than those of the ordinary size, and containing about two quarts; or a Jeroboam other than a witty conceit applied to the old measure Joram or Jorum, by some profane wine-bibber?
H. C. K.
Humbug (Vol. vii., p. 631.).—The real signification of the word humbug appears to me to lie in the following derivation of it. Among the many issues of base coin which from time to time were made in Ireland, there was none to be compared in worthlessness to that made by James II. from the Dublin Mint; it was composed of anything on which he could lay his hands, such as lead, pewter, copper, and brass, and so low was its intrinsic value, that twenty shillings of it was only worth twopence sterling. William III., a few days after the Battle of the Boyne, ordered that the crown piece and half-crown should be taken as one penny and one halfpenny respectively. The soft mixed metal of which that worthless coining was composed, was known among the Irish as Uim bog, pronounced Oom-bug, i.e. soft copper, i.e. worthless money; and in the course of their dealings the modern use of the word humbug took its rise, as in the phrases "that's a piece of uimbog (humbug)," "don't think to pass off your uimbug on me." Hence the word humbug came to be applied to anything that had a specious appearance, but which was in reality spurious. It is curious to note that the very opposite of humbug, i.e. false metal, is the word sterling, which is also taken from a term applied to the true coinage of the realm, as sterling coin, sterling truth, sterling worth, &c.
Fras. Crossley.
"Could we with ink," &c. (Vol. viii., pp. 127, 180.).-If Rabbi Mayir Ben Isaac is the bonâ fide author of the lines in question, or the substance of them, then the author of the Koran has been indebted to him for the following passage:
"If the sea were ink, to write the words of my Lord, verily the sea would fail before the words of my Lord would fail; although we added another sea unto it as a farther supply."—Al Koran, chap. xviii., entitled "The Cave," translated by Sale.