_Shipster_ (No. 14. p. 216.).--Are not _Baxter_ and _Tupster_ the feminines of _Baker_ and _Tapper_?--and may not _Shipster_ signify a _female ship-owner_?
_Kentish Ballad_ (No. 16. p. 247.).--The song beginning "When Harold was invaded" has long been a favourite in this county. It is entitled "The Man of Kent," and was composed by Tom Durfey, in the time of Charles the Second. It may be found, with the music, in Chappell's _Collection of English Airs_. He cites it as being in _Pills to purge Melancholy, with Music_, 1719, and states that in the _Essex Champion, or famous History of Sir Billy of Billericay and his Squire Ricardo_, 1690, the song of "The Man of Kent" is mentioned. I have none of these works at hand for immediate reference, but the above note contains all that I have been able to collect on the subject of our popular ballad.
There is another song, much to the same purport, beginning--
"When as the Duke of Normandy, With glistening spear and shield,"
in Evans's _Songs_, vol. ii. p. 33, printed by him from _The Garland of Delight_, by Delone, in the Pepys collection at Cambridge--a black-letter volume; and probably the song was by himself.
Your correspondent "F.B." asks for the remainder of the song. In pity to yourself and your readers, I forbear sending you the countless stanzas--numerous enough in the _original_ song, but now, by the additions of successive generations, swelled to a volume. He will find in Chappell's collection all that is worth having, with the assurance, repeated oft enough for the most enthusiastic of our _modest_ countrymen, that
"In Britain's race if one surpass, A man of Kent is he."
_Bess of Hardwick_ (No. 18. p. 276.).--The armorial bearings of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, co. Derby, father of Bess, were: Argent, a saltier engrailed, and on a chief blue three roses of the field.
_Trophee_ (No. 19. p. 303.).--"Trophe," in the Prologue of Lydgate's Translation of Boccaccio's _Fall of Princes_, is a misprint: _corrige_--
"In youth he made a translation Of a boke, which called is Troyle, In Lumbardes tonge, as men may rede and se, And in our vulgar, long or that he deyde, Gave it the name of Troylous and Cres-eyde."
The book called _Troyle_ is Boccaccio's _Troilo_, or _Filostrato_.