Shipster

As no satisfactory elucidation of the question propounded by Mr. Fox (No. 14. p. 216.) has been suggested, and I think he will scarcely accept the conjecture of "F.C.B.," however ingenious (No. 21. p. 339.), I am tempted to offer a note on the business or calling of a shipster. It had, I believe, no connection with nautical concerns; it did not designate a skipper (in the Dutch use of the word) of the fair sex. That rare volume, Caxton's *Boke for Travellers*, a treasury of archaisms, supplies the best definition of her calling: —"Mabyll the shepster cheuissheth her right well; she maketh surp…