Quad §, No 14,, Apri 5. °56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
269 
Fire, spedks of “the immortal Higginbottom,” as 
the predecessor of Mr. Braidwood, the Superin- 
tendant of the Fire Brigade. Who was he ?* 
Rost, Evans. 
Ashton-inder-Lyne. 
BLUE AND BUFF. 
Lord Stanhope, in the last chapter of his His- 
tory of England from 1713 to 1783 (vol. vii. 
p- 486.), cites from Wraxall’s Memoirs of his 
Own Time, the following passage relative to Mr. 
Fox, about the year 1781: 
“ He constantly, or at least usually, wore in the House 
of Commons a blue frock coat and a buff waistcoat, 
neither of which seenied, in géneral, new, and both some- 
times appeared to be threadbare. Nor ought it to be 
forgotten that these colours then constituted the distin- 
guishing@ badge or uniform of Washington and the Ame- 
rican insurgents.” 
Lord Stanhope subjoins this remark: 
“T cannot but suspect,” he says, “some misfepresént- 
ation of the motive. It is hard to believe, even of the 
most vehement days of party-spirit, that any Englishman 
could avowedly assume; in the House of Commons, the 
colours of those who, even though on the most righteous 
grounds, bore arms against England; and I should be 
willing to take in preference any other explanation that 
can be plausibly alleged.” 
It seems very improbable that the English 
Whigs should have adopted the colours of the 
American patriots. It is more likely that the 
American patriots should have adopted the co- 
lours of the English Whigs. Is there any evi- 
dence that blue and buff colours were used as a 
badge by the first promoters of independence in 
America? Perhaps some of your American cor- 
respondents may be able to throw light on this 
subject ? 
In the satirical verses upon Bishop Burnet, 
printed in “N. & Q.” (2"'S. vol. i. p: 146.), the 
following couplet occurs: These verses must 
have been written soon after Burnet’s death; 
which took place in 1715; they are in the form 
of a dialogue between the devil and the bishop. 
“ Devil. But how does Dr. Hoadley? Burnet. Oh, per- 
fectly well: 
A truer blue Whig you lave not in hell.” 
{* The reference is to Higgiibottom, one of the piin- 
cipal firemen, who perished at the burning of Drury Lane 
Theatre on Feb, 24, 1809, and who is thus commemorated 
in The Rejected Addresses : 
“Still o’er his head, while Fate he brav’d,; 
His whizzing water-pipe hé waved; ; 
‘Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps! 
‘You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps, 
‘Why are you in such doleful dumps? 
‘A fireman, and afraid of bumps! 
What are they fear’d on, fools? ’od rot ’em!’ 
Were the last words of Higgitibottoni.” ] 
The expression, a true blue Whig, was therefore 
in common use in the early part of the reign of 
George I. 
The colours of the Orange lodges in Ireland 
have always been orange or blue (or purple). 
This is a-fact about which no doubt can exist, 
as they must have been worn by hundreds of 
persons now living. The base of the statue of 
King William in College Green, Dublin, used, no 
log time ago, to be annually picked out in paint 
with these two colours. It is true that the Orange 
lodges, as or@atiised bodies, only ascend to the 
end of the last century, 1795. (See Plowden’s 
Historical Review of the State of Ireland, vol. ii. 
p. 536.). But the colours whjch were their dis- 
tinctive badge had doubtless been previously used 
by Ivish Protestants. 
If we suppose that orange and blue (which 
would easily pass into blue and buff) were King 
William’s colours, this would explain their be- 
coming the badge both of the English Whigs and 
of the Irish Protestants. Orange would naturally 
be the colour of the House of Orange; whether 
orange and blue were the colours of that House 
I know not: they are, however, at present the 
colours of the Duchy of Nassau, as any traveller 
on the Rhine may observe them painted in that 
state. 
It is possible that some of your correspondents 
may have information as to the use of the colours 
orange and blue at elections in the last century, 
before the American war. Coloured ribbons were 
commonly used as party badges on such occasions. 
Blue and buff were the recognised colours of 
the Whig party at the beginning of this century, 
and were for this reason assumed by the Edin- 
burgh Review. This distinctive mark is alluded 
to by Lord Byron: 
“ Bre the next review 
Soars on its wings of saffron and of blué.’’ 
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 
L. 
Minor Queries. 
Military Poems, 1716.—1I have a yolume in 
my library, the author of which I should be glad 
to know. It is entitled: 
“ Military and other Poems tipon ‘several Occasions, _ 
atid to several Persons: By an Officer of the Army. 
London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by J. Browne 
at the Black Swan without Temple-bar. 1716. 8vo., 
pp. 271.” 
The volume contains many spirited poems; and 
some of historical interest. It concludes with a 
dramatic production, entitled “Socrates ‘Tri- 
umphant; or the Danger of being Wise in a 
Common-wealth of Fools.” 
Epwarp F’, Rimpavutr. 
