Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/23

 2 nd S. X 1., JAN. 5. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

15

about the building of the steeple, I espied within a grassce bush the skull of spine dead corps, having in the upmost part of it a little void. And having a purpose to come, the sexton put the skull under earth ; looking on it more narrowly, I saw through the void part of it a toade of huge bigness; whereupon I called the workmen to con- sider this spectacle with me, and having a little discourse unto them of the miseries, vileness, vanity, and pride of man, we all began to consider how we might have the toade separated from the head, but that we found alto- gether impossible, till the bone was violently broken, so little was the voide part of it, and so big was the toade. Let the reader judge where this toade was bred and fostered."

The book itself is an admirable one, the work of a scholar and a man of God. It is too little known, and ought to be reprinted. Its author was evidently not" the " fool " that his bishop thought fit to call him. HORATIUS BONAR.

Kelso.

SEW TESTAMENT IN FSENCH AND LATIN.

(1" S. xii. 450.)

From the brief description given by MR. OFFOR, the following inferences naturally arise. The translation is from the Syriac, called in the New Testament Hebrew, and appears to have been printed at Lyons in 1554, one year in anticipa- tion of the editio princeps of the Syriac New Tes- tament of Widmanstadt, printed at Vienna in 1555, which last, besides a Syriac inscription of six lines in Estraugelo, had also the following in Latin :

" Liber sacrosancti Evangelii de Jesu Christo Domino et Deo nostro. Reliqua hoc Codice comprehensa pagina proxhna indicabit. Div. Ferdinandi Imperatoris desig- nati jussu et liberalitate, characteribus et lingua Syra, Jem Christo vernacula, divino ipsius ore consecrata, k Joh. Evangelista HEBRAICA DICTA, scriptorio prelo dili- geuter cxpressa."

Hence the expression in the title of this dual ver- sion, "selon la verite Hebraique."

Non constat that any MS. of the New Testa-' meat in biblical Hebrew ever existed. The hypo- thesis that some of the Gospels were in part compiled from a document in Hebrew, cannot refer to biblical Hebrew, but to that mixed dia- lect properly and emphatically called Hebrew in the New Testament, but which modern critics have designated Syro-Chaldee, Palestinian, and West Aramaean. Biblical Hebrew had been a dead language long before the Messiah's advent, although it existed long afterwards as a written language, of which the Mishna and Gemara are proofs, notwithstanding the occasional introduc- tion of words from the Chaldee, Arabic, Greek, &c. The following passages may be used as a test for ascertaining whether this New Testament " selon la verite Hebraique " be or be not a ver- sion from the Syriac ; for if from the Syriac,

Matt. xi. 19., "/cal SiKuiu>6ri rj ffO(j>ia airb roJv re KVUV our?)?," will read " by their arts or works ; " Matt, xxiii. 26., "/cal TTJS no, potyidos" will read " brim" or " handle ;" and Acts xviii. 7., " ovo^ari. 'lovffrov ffego.ueVou," will read "in the name of Titus, who feared- God." (See Hug. i., ss. 63. 69. ; Seller, p. 402., Wright's edit.) The omission of 1 John v. 7. will also form a criterion, if the text has not been violated. T. J. BUCK.TON.

Lich field.

CHURCHDOWN : SIMILAR LEGENDS AT DIFFERENT PLACES.

(1 st S. xii. 341.)

At Breedon in Leicestershire, the church is situated upon a high hill, and there is a legend as to its being built there precisely similar to that which your correspondent mentions as to Church- down Church.

In Potter's Charnwood, p. 179., a "Legend of the Hangman's Stone " in verse is given, in which the death of John of Oxley is described :

" One shaft he drew on his well-tried yew,

And a gallant hart lay dead ; He tied its legs, ancKfce hoisted his prize,

And he toil d over Lubcloud brow. He reach'd the tall stone standing out and alone,

Standing then as it standeth now ; With his back to the stone he rested his load,

And he chuckled with glee to think, That the rest of his way on the down hill lay,

And his wife would have spiced the strong drink.

A swineherd was passing o'er great Ives' Head, -

When he noticed a motionless man ; He shouted in vain no reply could he gain

So down to the grey stone he ran. All was clear. There was Oxley on one side the stone,

On the other the down hanging deer; The burden had slipp'd, and his neck it had nipp'd ;

He was hanged by his prize all was clear."

When I was a youth, there were two fields in the parish of Foremark, Derbyshire, called the Great and the Little Hangman's Stone. In the former there was a stone, five or six feet high, with an indentation running across the top of it ; and there was a legend that a sheepstealer, once upon a time having stolen a sheep, had placed it on the top of the stone, and that it had slipped off and strangled him with the rope with which it was tied, and that the indentation was made by the friction of the rope caused by the struggles of the dying man.

The present church at Foremark stands in a very inconvenient place for the greater part of the inhabitants of the parish, which includes Ingleby, where the old church formerly stood. The whole parish has long been the property of the Burdetts, and I heard many years ago, from one very likely to be correct, that the reason why the new church