Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/121

 10 s. XL JAX. 30, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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that the foundation by him of the new school -was laid more securely by the citizens of London when they contrived accommodation in the repaired conventual edifice for three hundred and forty children, all wearing a livery of russet cotton. Russet clothes are indicative of countrymen in Hall's ' Satires,' 1598, and in the notes to Singer's edition it is said : " Russettings are clowns, low people, whose clothes were of a russet colour " (Fairholt's ' Costume,' 1846, p. 593). The humble origin, therefore, of the Blue Coat School, as a purely charitable institution for poor fatherless children and foundlings, cannot be doubted. The children, however, were soon clad in the blue costume by which they have ever since been distinguished, the first dress, as indeed the present also, somewhat resembling the habit of the ejected brotherhood to whose possessions they had succeeded.

It consists of a long blue coat, reaching to the ankles, and girt about the waist with a leathern girdle ; a yellow cassock or petticoat (still, I believe, called a " yellow "), which is now worn under the coat only during the winter, though it was originally a necessary appendage throughout the year ; and stockings of yellow worsted. A pair of white bands about the neck is all that remains of the original ruff or collar, which was then a part of the ordinary dress of all ranks ; and the black cap, upon the small- ness of which the boys used to pride them- selves as a peculiar distinction of the school, is also a remnant of the cap of larger size worn at the period of the foundation. It has been imagined that the coat was the mantle, and - the " yellow " the sleeveless tunic of the monastery ; the leathern girdle also corresponding with the hempen cord of the friar (see ' A History of the Royal Foundation of Christ's Hospital,' by the Rev. Wm. Trollope, 1834, pp. 40-41 and 50-51).

Blue coats were the ordinary livery of serving-men in the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth. Thus in Chettle's ' Kind Hart's Dream,' 1592, we are told :

"This shifter, forsooth, carried no lesse counte- nance than a gentleman's abilitie, with his two men in blew-coats, that served for shares, not wages.''

Blue gowns are worn as a sign of humility or penance in the Bridewell scene in Dekker's 'Honest Whore,' 1630. A blue coat is the dress of a beadle (Fairholt's ' Costume,' 1846, p. 438 ; see also Cunningham's ' London,' -s.v. l Christ's Hospital ').

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Leigh Hunt, an old scholar of Christ's Hospital, associates the quaint costume of the Blue Coat boys with the " ordinary dress of children in humble life during the reign of the Tudors. We used to flatter our- selves that it was taken from the monks."

The former theory is quite probable, since the school was founded by Edward VT. for the orphans and poor children of London city. With regard to the latter theory, there are many striking points of similarity in dress, and this notion possibly arose from the uncertainty of the origin, and became conjecturally deduced from the fact that the school was raised (shortly after the Dissolution) upon the confiscated priory of the Grey Friars.

For further information on the rise, pro- gress, and ancient customs of the foundation the Rev. E. H. Pearce's ' Annals of Christ's Hospital ' will be found accurate and serviceable. OLD BLUE.

The following statement is taken from the ' History of Christ's Hospital ' (5th ed., London, 1830), of which a portion was written by Charles Lamb :

" The dress of the boys first admitted was a sort of russet, but this was soon changed for the dress they now wear, which is at present the most com- plete representation of the monkish habit in exist- ence. What is now called the coat was the ancient tunic, and the petticoat (or yellow, as it is tech- nically termed) was the sleeveless or under tunic of the monastery. The girdle round the waist was also an appendage of the monkish habit, but the breeches are a subsequent addition. To this is to be added the small round cap, an appendage that touches the delicate nerves of those who would in- troduce effeminate habits into the school, while it has never been known to injure those who have for years either worn it or carried it in their hands. It is to be hoped the day is far distant when the Governors shall find nothing better to deliberate upon than what innovation they are to make in a dress that has stood the test of centuries and be- come venerable from its antiquity."

A. H. ARKLE. [MR. A. R. BAYLEYalso thanked for reply.]

'FOLKESTONE FIERY SERPENT' (10 S. x. 508 ; xi. 72). There were several editions of this skit. In the Kentish collection in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth is a copy of the fifth. Some years ago I saw one in the possession of Mr. G. O. Howell, editor of ' The Kentish Note-book ' ; and in the first volume of that work, pp. 249-60, is another varying version from a manuscript which COL. FYNMORE knows. I believe it was a skit against the introduction of railways opposition which was very active in all parts at their first development. This