Now, a comparison of the definitions of the Spanish and Portuguese gromete, and the English younker, leads me to infer that the latter term had been substituted for grummett or gromet, and that the duties of both classes were nearly the same.
If the above information should seem less precise than might be expected, I must make my apology in the words which Edward Jorden addressed to captain Smith on the publication of his Sea grammar:
"Who can
Deriue thy words, is more grammarian
Than Camden, Clenard, Ramus, Lilly were:
Here's language would haue non-plust Scaliger!"
Bolton Corney.
BEAVER HATS.
Permit me to suggest that, in asking a question, it is often desirable that the querist should state briefly the amount of information he already possesses on the subject. For instance, had Mr. "T.H. Turner," when inquiring after beaver hats (No. 7. p. 100.), stated, that he had met with the mention of them as early as the time of Hen. III., I, of course, should not have troubled you with a notice of them in the reign of Elizabeth. Indeed, I owe Mr. Turner an apology; for if I had reflected a moment upon the extensive antiquarian information of the querist, I should certainly have concluded that he must be well acquainted with the authorities I cited, which happened to be at my elbow at the time I read the query. Mr. B. Corney (No. 19. p. 307.) has supplied a beaver hat from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; we meet with another in his Testament of Creseide, v. 386., "in a mantill and a beaver hat." We may therefore conclude that they were not unusual in Chaucer's time. I now think it very probable that beaver hats were introduced into this country as early as the Norman Conquest; for we find mention of them in Normandy at a still earlier period. In the "Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Wandrille" (edited by Acheri, in his Spicilegium), we find, amongst the gifts of the Abbot Ansegisus, who died A.D. 833,