Minor Notes.
King Richard III. (Vol. iii., p. 221.).—On the 14th May, 1491 (6 Henry VII.), one Master William Burton, the schoolmaster of St. Leonard's Hospital, in the city of York, was accused before the magistrates of having said that "King Richard was an hypocrite, a crocheback, and buried in a dike like a dog." This circumstance is recorded in a contemporary document of unquestionable authenticity (vide extracts from York Records in the Fifteenth Century, p. 220.); and must remove all doubt as to the fact of Richard's bodily deformity. The conjecture of Dr. Wallis, quoted by G. F. G., can have no weight when opposed by clear evidence that the word "crouchback," as a term of reproach or contempt, was applied to King Richard within a few years after his death, by one to whom his person must have been familiarly known.
Δ.
Shakespeare a thorough Sailor.—Let me point attention to a genuine nautical expression, in the use of which Shakespeare shows himself a thorough sailor:
"The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail."—Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 3.
In a "fore and aft sail" of the present day, the "shoulder" is the foremost upper corner, and the last part of the canvass on which the wind fixes its influence when a vessel is "sailing by the wind," or even "off the wind." The "veriest lout" in the "after-guard" will appreciate the truthfulness and beauty of the metaphor.
A. L.
"A fellow-feeling," &c.—
"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."
This oft-quoted line is from Garrick's Epilogue on quitting the stage.