sailes, or slinging the yards, bousing or trising, and take
their turnes at helme."

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,

"Cappas Romanas duas, unam videlicet ex rubeo cindato, et
fimbriis viridibus in circuitu ornatam; alteram _ex cane
Pontico_, quero vulgus _Bevurum_ nuncupat, similiter fimbriis
sui coloris decoratam in orbe."

I do not conceive this cap to have been made of the _skin_ of a
beaver, for the term would then most probably have been "ex _p