Note 46 — A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG, OR THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE.

At page 24 of a curious old Civil War tract, entitled, The Oxonian Antippodes, by I. B., Gent., 1644, the town is called Brummidgham, and this was the general rendering in the printed literature of the seventeenth century.—[This must have been the first known step towards the present vulgar style of spelling, for properly the word is Bromwich-ham, which has been corrupted into Brummagem, a term used to express worthless or inferior goods, from the spurious jewellery, plate, &c., manufactured there expressly for “duffers.”—Ed.] [46]