416 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n* S. £. Nov. 24, '60. 



a vessel trading to this port, — said to have been a 

 boy on board a collier, — and meeting with ill- 

 ireatment, or otherwise disgusted with his pro- 

 fession, ran away from his ship, and secreted 

 himself in the town till after her departure, when 

 he commenced singing in the streets for main- 

 tenance, and in this capacity was heard and en- 

 gaged by the manager of the theatre, who after- 

 wards employed Dibdin to write songs for Incledon 

 to sing on the stage.* As the claim of Dibdin's 

 compositions to be called " Sea- Songs" has re- 

 cently been discussed in your pages, may it not 

 have been that Incledon furnished the materials 

 of nautical lore they contain, which Dibdin worked 

 up into those spirit-stirring -ballads which, be the 

 question wliat it may as to their truly nautical 

 character, certainly exercised great influence on 

 the minds and hearts of our sailors, and even at 

 the present day have lost but little of their power 

 to charm ? Henrt W. S. Taylor. 



Southampton. 



Veron's Testament or 1646, 1647 (2"* S. x. 

 331. 372.) — Dr. Cotton says in his interesting Note 

 on the Bourdeaux Testament {ante^ p. 372.), that 

 he has never yet found in any library, public or 

 private, Veron's Testaments of 1646 or 1647. It 

 may therefore interest him and others to know 

 that I discovered a copy of the edition of 1646 in 

 the Chapter Library at Salisbury in the autumn 

 of 1857. The precise title is, I believe, as follows : 



" Le Nouveau Testament de Jesus-Christ, selon Tedition 

 imprimfe h Rome par le Commandement de N. S. Pfere le 

 Pape Sixte V. de la Traduction des Docteurs de I'Uni- 

 versit^ de Louvain. Paris. Chez Gabriel Clopjeau, 1646." 

 Sm. 12". Title and approbation two leaves, pp. 885. 



The edition of 1647 was sold at the sale of Dr. 

 Hawtrey's library in 1853, where it produced 21^. 

 The title given in the Sale Catalogue was — 



" Le Nouveau Testament de la Traduction des Docteurs 

 de Louvain, reveue et corrig^e si gdneralement, qu'elle 

 est au vray une Traduction nouvelle, &c., par Fran9ois 

 Veron. Parts, 1647, 4to." 



F. S. Ellis. 



33. King Street, Covcnt Garden. 



The Felbrigg Brass (2"* S. x. 367.) — I am 

 glad your correspondent, A. J. M., has called at- 

 tention to the noble Felbrigg brass in its present 

 neglected state. The following extract from a 

 letter by Vice-Admiral W. H. Smyth may, if 

 printed in your columns, arrest the " wanton de- 

 struction" of monuments by those who are in 

 duty bound to preserve them : — 



" In my last letter 1 alluded to the wanton destruc- 

 tion of the Felbrigge monument at Playford, an act 



* It was, too, from this connection, probably, that Dib- 

 din, who was designed for the clerical profession, acquired 

 a love for dramatic pursuits, as I find it stated of him, 

 that " in early life he possessed considerable merit as an 

 actor." 



which a valued correspondent informs me was * perpe- 

 trated by the ipsis manihus of two clergymen. No plough- 

 man, street sweeper, or marine store dealer, would have 

 done such a thing.' " 



And in a recent letter from Mx. Albert Way, 

 that energetic antiquary, says : 



" When I offered, some twelve or fifteen years ago, to 

 have the figure and canopy of the founder of Playford 

 church, which had been most violently torn from its 

 resting-place, made good at my own expense, the incum- 

 bent declined to permit anything of that kind to be done." 



The excuse was truly iconoclastic : 



" That if the brass of Sir George were fixed up in the 

 chancel, it would distract the attention of his hearers 

 during divine service." 



Such conduct deserves the reprobation of every 

 Christian, arch£eologist, or man of taste ; and the 

 various Antiquarian Societies might be doing 

 some good if they protected monuments of this 

 nature from damage or loss. 



W. Warwick King. 



Changes of the Moon (2"* S. x. 256.) — In 

 the Athenaum of 1849, February and March, the 

 moon was put on her trial. Dr. Forster of 

 Bruges, a well-known meteorologist, had declared 

 to the Astronomical Society that, in journals kept 

 by himself, his father, and his grandfather, from 

 1767 to 1849, every Saturday's new moon had 

 been followed, nineteen times out of twenty, by 

 twenty wet and windy days. The Athenceum of 

 Feb. 17, 'noticing this declaration, i^minded its 

 readers that the next Saturday new moon was to 

 be on the 24th of March ensuing. And it so 

 happened that after a tolerable course of dry 

 weather, there was some more rain and wind on 

 that Saturday, followed by a week of clouds and 

 slight rain and snow. The correspondents of the 

 Athenceum quoted several popular sayings. As, 



" Saturday moon and Sunday full, 

 Never was fair and never wool." 

 "Jfa, Saturday's moon 

 Come once in seven years, it comes too soon." 



One correspondent said he had heard it at sea 

 all his life from English, American, French, and 

 Spanish seamen ; and once from a Chinese pilot : 

 he added that he had constantly observed the phe- 

 nomenon. Another correspoaident affirmed that 

 seamen would as soon sail on Friday as be in 

 the Channel after a Saturday's moon. All which 

 is curious, whetjier the thing be true or false. 



A..De Morgan. 



Bastard (2"« S. x. 44. 178. 279.) — Perhaps 

 the most improbable etymology of this word is that 

 from the Celtic. Leibnitz derives it from "bassm, 

 vilis, humilis, et art, genus ; " Cujax and others 

 from " G. bos-art, pessima soboles ; " Kilian, on 

 the contrary, from " best-art, optima soboles." 

 Wachter thinks bast may be from iraffros, thalamus; 

 " nam hoc conjunctum cum art efficit eum qui vi- 

 tio lecti genialis laborat. Qualis omnino est basr 



