2«o S. VI. 134., July 24. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



7? 



division was preceded by a banner, bearing the 

 words " No Popery." (Cunningham's Handbook 

 of London, art. " Coachmakers' Hall.) When the 

 riots were at their height. Lord George Gordon 

 appeared in the House of Commons with a blue 

 cockade ; upon which Col. Herbert stood up in 

 his place, and declared that he would not sit in 

 the House while a member wore the badge of 

 sedition in his hat ; and that, unless the noble lord 

 removed the offensive cockade, he would cross 

 the floor and remove it himself. Lord George, 

 pretending to yield to the wishes of his friends, 

 took down the cockade, and put it in his pocket. 

 (Massey's History of England during the Reign 

 of George III., vol. ii. p. 465.) The account of 

 these riots in the Annual Register for 1780 men- 

 tions the blue cockade in sevei-al places, as also 

 blue flags. See Ann. Reg. vol. xxiii. pp. 191. 257. 

 261. 272, 273. L. 



Greenwich Palace (2°* S. v. 457.) — In reply to 

 the inquiry concerning engravings of old Green- 

 wich Palace, if your correspondent will favour me 

 with a call I shall have great pleasure in showing 

 him a large collection of old engravings, drawings, 

 portraits, &c., connected with " our pleasant, per- 

 fect, and princely palaice." 



W. POPHAM LeTHBRIDGE. 



Greenwich Hospital. 



Sivift (2°^ S. vi. 24.) — "An old woman lately 

 died in St. Patrick Street at the age of 110 years; 

 and being asked if she remembered the appear- 

 ance of the celebrated dean, she described it mi- 

 nutely " ! ! 



The interrogator must have been very gullible ; 

 or else he must be liable to be suspected of being 

 akin to the dean's hero, Gulliver. 



If by dying lately we can allow him to mean as 

 long as eight years ago, the old woman would 

 only have been an infant in arms in 1741. Dean 

 Swift died in 1745, and having become decidedly 

 insane or idiotic in 1741, is not likely to have 

 been allowed to exhibit himself in the streets 

 after that, so that the old woman must have had 

 a very precocious power of observation, as well as 

 a wonderfully tenacious memory. H. W. 



Junius' Letters to Wilkes (2''<' S. vi. 44.)— The late 

 much respected Mr. Joseph Parker of Oxford was 

 the Rev. Peter Elmsley's executor, whose library of 

 printed books was purchased by Messrs. Payne & 

 Fo88 of Pall Mall, of which a considerable portion 

 was sold at Oxford to members of the University. 



Mr. Parker received particular instructions 

 from Dr. Elmsley relative to the AVilkes papers. 

 Probably Mr. Parker's son, the Rev. Edward 

 Parker, Rector of Great Oxendon, Northampton- 

 shire, could give information respecting them ; or 

 Mr. J. H. Parker of Oxford may know what be- 

 came of these interesting papers. H. F. 



" Carrenare" (2"" S. vi. .S7.) — The difference 

 between docking and careening a jship consisted 

 in this ; that, in careening, a ship was laid on lier 

 side in the water. A representation of a ship so 

 "laid over" maybe seen in Falconer's il/arene 

 Dictionary, edited by Burney (1830), Plate VII. 

 Fig. 5. ; and also in Jal's Glossaire Nautique 

 (1848), p. 423., where the hull appears " le cote 

 droit dans Veau, et la moitie gauche de la carene 

 au soleil." As, in Chaucer's days, there was a 

 royal palace at Greenwich, there can be no dif- 

 ficulty in supposing that the high-born dames of 

 the court knew the difference between a dry and 

 a careening dock. 



Though well aware that wooers in those days 

 were often sent forth, by dames whom they sought 

 to win, on pilgrimages into distant lands, I am 

 still inclined to think that the three lines at pre- 

 sent in question refer to a mandate of a different 

 kind, and one which was to be executed forth- 

 with : — " anone that he go hoodlesse" &c. Chaucer 

 commends her whose praises he sings, for not 

 exacting any such task. Is not this commenda- 

 tion, as I have already ventured to suggest (2""* 

 S. iii. 299.), a satirical allusion to some fair ladye 

 of the court who had actually imposed such a 

 journey ? As the mandate was to " go hood- 

 lesse," may it not have been laid upon Chaucer 

 himself, who is generally pictured with a hood, 

 but who certainly never visited Palestine ? 



Although the Red Sea was on one memorable 

 occasion divided, yet, as it soon closed again, one 

 cannot easily suppose that it went in Cliaucer's 

 days by the name of the " dry sea." Nor, if it did, 

 can we imagine a high-born dame so cruel as to bid 

 her suitor " walk into " it, an exploit which al- 

 most cost the lives of Bonaparte and his suite. 



Thomas Boys. 



Blunderbuss (2°'' S. v. 396.) — AVithout de- 

 tracting anything from the explanation of the 

 word blunderbuss, as possibly having its origin in 

 the stunning (etonnants, attonantes) effects of the 

 explosion, I may be permitted to observe tliat a 

 derivation from the Dutch bulderen (to bellow, to 

 thunder, to roar, cognate with balderen) wo'.iid 

 answer the purpose very well. Though, as far as 

 I can remember, the word bulderbus does not occur 

 in Dutch, still we have the term bulderbas, which 

 now means a blustering fellow, but which, in 

 olden time, may have signified a blunderbuss, 

 even as, till this day, draribas (from draaijen, to 

 turn) denotes a sivivel. 



Now, as nobody likes not to understand the 

 sense of a word he uses, and would rather change 

 it than leave it unexplained, the term bulderbas 

 may very well, in such a way, have been trans- 

 ibrmed into the English sounding term bbinder- 

 buss ; and for the following reason : the short and 

 wide-mouthed blunderbuss was, most probably, 

 loaded with slugs, which its explosion would needs 



