W.P.
Butchers' Blue Dress (Vol. ii., p. 266.).—A blue dress does not show stains of blood, inasmuch as blood, when dry, becomes of a blue colour. I have always understood this to be the explanation of this custom.
X.Z.
Chaucer's Portrait by Occleve (Vol. ii., p. 442.).—This portrait is engraved in Strutt's Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities.
J.I.D.
[And we may add, in the edition of Tyrwhitt's Canterbury Tales, published by Pickering—ED.]
Chaucer's Portrait (Vol. ii., p. 442.).—His portrait, from Occleve's poem, has been engraved in octavo and folio by Vertue. Another, from the Harleian MS., engraved by Worthington, is in Pickering's edition of Tyrwhitt's Chaucer. Occleve's poem has not been printed; but see Ritson's Biblioth. Poetica, and Warton's H.E.P. A full-length portrait of Chaucer is given in Shaw's Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages; another, on horseback, in Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer.
W.P.
Lady Jane of Westmoreland (Vol. i., p. 103.).—I think your correspondent Q.D. is wrong in his supposition that the two following entries in Mr. Collier's second volume of Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company refer to a composition by Lady Jane of Westmoreland:—
"1585-6. Cold and uncoth blowes, of the Lady Jane of Westmorland.
1586-7. A songe of Lady Jane of Westmorland."