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 jumbled together without judgment.">[

Lovell, Sculptor.—What is known of this artist? That he was in advance of the age he flourished in is evinced by his beautifully executed engravings in Love's Sacrifice (fol. Lond. 1652), which for delicacy of work are far beyond anything of the period.

R.C. Warde.

Kidderminster.

[Is the name Lovell, or Loisell? for we find that Strutt, in his Dictionary of Engravers, vol. ii. p. 101., speaks of "P. Loisell having affixed some slight etchings, something in the style of Gaywood (if I mistake not), to Benlowe's Theophilia, or Love's Sacrifice.">[