July 10. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



41 



lookinjj through it, find his vision greatly assisted. 

 If another be made •025 in., the advantage will 

 be still jzreater; and with one "0166 in. greater 

 still, indeed almost equal to tiiat derived from a 

 concave lens. Beyond this there does not iippear 

 to be any advantage, on account of the loss of 

 light. 



Now this circumstance leads us to infer, either 

 that " aberration " is destroyed by limiting the 

 aperture of vision to so small a point in the centre 

 of the lens of the eye, or that the diffraction of the 

 rays, iis they pass the edges of the hole, assists 

 short-sighted vision on the principle of the con- 

 cave lens, i. e. by changing parallel rays into 

 divergent ; but, as far as we know anything of 

 diffraction, its effect is the direct opposite. 



1 do not, therefore, see how we can avoid ac- 

 cepting the former as the preferable solution of 

 this phenomenon, though, on so difficult a subject, 

 it behoves one to speak with great diffidence. 



H.C.K. 



Rectory, Hereford. 



OBIGIN OF THE STABS AND STBIPES. 



(Vol. ii., p. 135.) 



Jabltzberg wishes to know the origin of the 

 stars and stripes in the American flag. His Query 

 might be answered briefly by stating that the 

 American Congre-s, on the 14th of June, 1777, 

 "Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United 

 States be thirteen stripes, alternately red and 

 white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in 

 a blue field, representing a new constellation." 

 But your correspondent wishes to know the 

 origin of the combination, and who first suggested 

 the idea. Some have supposed that it might 

 have been derived from the arms of General 

 Washington, which contains three stars in the 

 upper portion, and three bars running across the 

 escutcheon. There is no means of knowing at 

 this day whether this conjecture is correct, but 

 the coincidence is rather striking. There were 

 several flags used before the striped flag by the 

 Americans. In Mai'ch 1775 "a union flag with 

 a red field" was hoisted at New York upon the 

 liberty pole, bearing the inscription " George Rex 

 and the liberties of America," and upon the re- 

 verse "No Popery." On the 18th of July, 1778, 

 Gen. Putnam raised, at Prospect Hill, a flag bear- 

 ing on one side the Massachusetts motto " Qui 

 transtulit sustinet" on the other "An appeal to 

 Heaven." In October of the same year the float- 

 ing batteries at Boston had a flag with the latter 

 motto, the field white with a pine-tree upon it. 

 This was the Massachusetts emblem. Another 

 flag, used during 1775 in some of the colonies, 

 had upon it a rattlesnake coiled as if about to 

 strike, with the motto " Don't tread on me." The 



grand union flag of thirteen stripes was raised ou 

 the heights near Bost(m, January 2, 1776. Letters 

 from there say that the regulars in lioston did not 

 undersiand it; and as the king's si)cech had just 

 been sent to the Americans, they thought the new 

 flag was a token of submission. The British 

 Annual Register of 1776 says: "They burnt the 

 king's speecli and changed their colours from a 

 plain red ground, which they had hitherto used, 

 to a flag with thirteen stripes, as a symbol of the 

 number and union of the colonies." A letter from 

 Boston about the same time, published in the 

 Penna Gazette for January, 177o, says: "The 

 grand union flag was raised on the 2nd, in com- 

 pliment to the united colonies." 'J'hc idea of 

 making each stripe for a state was adopted from 

 the first ; and the fact goes far to negative the 

 supposition that the private arms of General 

 Washington had anything to do with the subject. 

 The pine-tree, rattlesnake, and striped flag were 

 used indiscriminately until July, 1777, when the 

 blue union with the stars was added to the stripes, 

 and the flag established by law. Formerly a new 

 stripe was added for each new state a<lmitted to 

 the union, until the flag became too large, when 

 by act of Congress the stiipes were reduced to the 

 old thirteen ; and now a star is added to the union 

 at the accession of each new state. 



T. Westcott. 

 Pliiladelphia, U. S. A., June 5, 1852. 



ONE OB TWO PASSAGES IN "KING LEAB. 



In the last " N. & Q.," in an article on " Prin- 

 ter's Errors in the Inseparable Particles in Shak- 

 speare," Mr. Singer, unconsciously I am sure, 

 does me a slight injustice, when he states that in 

 a passage which he quotes from King Lear, Act II. 

 So. 1., I have followed the Variorum Edit. I 

 certainly print it " as if the sense v/as interrupted," 

 but I do not begin the word "dispatch" with a 

 capital letter, as he erroneously represents, and I 

 put a period after it, which he omits, — circum- 

 stances which render it clear, that I was of opinion 

 that "dispatch" had reference rather to what went 

 before it than to what came after it. You must 

 allow me to subjoin the very words in the very 

 way they appear in my edition : — 



" Glo. Let Iiim fly far : 



Not in this land sliall he remain uncaiight ; 

 And found — dispatch. — The noble Duke my mas- 

 ter," &c. 

 To print " Dispatch" with a capital letter, and to 

 omit the period after it, makes some difference, 

 though I am as far as any bodjr from pretending 

 that I fully conveyed the meaning of the poet by 

 my mode of giving the quotation. I a[)prehehd 

 that Mr. Singer supposes that "Dispatch" refers 

 to what follows it, and that Gloster wishes to im- 



