College Green, Worcester, March, 1851.
* * * * *
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.
[Delta].
_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.