2=3 S. VIII. Oct. 15. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



319 



Notes and Queries, xii. 2—4. ; Life of Sir Samuel 

 Romilhj; Watkins's Biog. Diet; Whitaker's Cra- 

 ven, 363, 364. C. H. & Thompson Coopee. 

 Cambridge. 



Etymology of the word Battens (2"* S. viiL 249.) 

 — Before we can make anything of tlie derivation 

 of this word, we must look a little into its history. 

 The term latten appears to have had formerly a 

 close connexion with button. For batten Johnson 

 refers to Moxon, whom we find first using the 

 word in 1678. " Batten. Is a Scantling of Stuff" 

 either two, three or four Inches broad : and is 

 seldom above an Inch thick : and the Length un- 

 limmitted." {Mechan. Exercises.') Aga,m, ^' Batton 

 in merchandise " is stated to be " a name given to 

 certain pieces of wood or deal for flooring or other 

 purposes." (Encyc. Brit. 1842.) Moreover, ac- 

 cording to Wright, these two terms, batton and 

 batten, are convertible. " Batton. In commerce, 

 pieces of wood or deal for flooring, or other pur- 

 poses, also called batten." {Univ. Pron. Diet.) 



But supposing batton and batten to be thus only 

 the same word under different forms, what of 

 their etymology ? Batton is derived by Webster 

 from bat, and bat from the Saxon. (" Bac, Bate. 

 Fustis. a bat or club." Lye.) According to Ogil- 

 vie, however, batton in Spenser signifies " a baton 

 or club " (Supplement), which leads us off" quite in 

 another direction, and brings us to the Fr. baton, 

 old Fr. baston. All we can say is that both the 

 Fr. baton and the Sax. bat have perhaps a com- 

 mon origin from some older root. Cf. Lat. batva, 

 to beat, "a ^nriio, quod Delphorum lingua est 

 Trareco, calco." (Ainsworth.) Menage, however, 

 derives the Lat. batuo from the Gr. trarAffcroi ; and 

 as to the origin of the. old Fr. baston and It. bas- 

 tone the differences are endless. Thomas Bots. 



Rustic Superstition (2"'^ S. viii. 243.) — The 

 author of Adam Bede, in the passage quoted by 

 A, evidently refers to a superstition prevalent in 

 many parts of Britain, and preserved to us in an 

 aphoristic form in the following distich : — ^ 



"Happy is the wedding that the sun shines on ; 

 Blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on." 



Otherwise thus : — 



" Sad is the burying in the sun shine ; 

 But blessed is the corpse that goeth home in rain." 



The moon is said to be like a boat when the 

 horns seem to point upwards ; and there is a 

 very prevalent opinion in this county, not con- 

 fined entirely to the uninstructed, that at the 

 period when the moon is thus situated, there will 

 be no rain. Southey notices this piece of folk- 

 lore in one of his letters, and furnishes us with 

 a quaint reason for it. 



"Poor Littledale has this day explained the cause of 

 our late rains, which have prevailed for the last five 

 weeks, by a theory which will probably be as new to you 

 as it is to me. ' I have observed,' he says, ' that when 



the moon is turned upwards, we have fine weather after 

 it, but Avhen it is turned down, then we have a wet 

 season; and the reason I think is, that when it is turned 

 down, it holds no water, like a bason, j'ou know, and 

 then down it comes." — Letter to G. C. Bedford, Esq., 

 Dec. 29, 1828. (Life and Correspondence of It. Southey, 

 edited bt/ his Son, Rev. C. C. Southey, vol. v. p. 341.) 



Edward Peacock. 

 Bottesford Manor, Brigg, Lincolnshire. 



Booh Inscriptions (passim). — In a MS. copy of 

 the " Register of the Titles of a Collegiate Church 

 in St. Thanew's Gate, Glasgow," which belonged 

 to the deceased John Dillon, S.S.C., F.S.S.A., a 

 learned legal antiquary, and one of the sheriffs 

 of Lanarkshire, whose large valuable library was 

 disposed of in Glasgow by public sale in No- 

 vember, 1831, occur the following Notes: — 



" This bulk ressauit be me fra Mr. James Wardlaw, con- 

 tenane fiftie ane leiffis of parchment, to be delivered be 

 me to him again ye raorne. Subscryvit with my hand 

 at Edinburgh the xxi day of December four score twelf 

 yeirs." (sic?) 



" James Streveling." 

 " Hie liber pertinet, 

 To beir it veil in mj'nde, 

 Ad me Magistrum Jacobum Wardlaw, 

 Baith courtas and kynd. 

 Si quisquis invenerit, 

 To give it him again, 

 Habebit pecunium, 

 The quhilk sal mak him fain." 



" Gulielmus Auchenlek 

 Give gloir to God." 

 The care, and punctuality in returning, of these 

 ancient book borrowers may well serve for an 

 example even in modern times, so often miserably 

 infringed. Mr. Wardlaw had likely been a cau- 

 tious, yet obliging lawyer, who knew the value of 

 never lending any of his buiks and papers except 

 upon a receipt. G. N. 



Somersetshire Poets (2"'i S. viii. 204. 258.) — I 

 am persuaded that Somersetshire may claim the 

 honour of the birth of Southey. My mother and he 

 were playmates in early childhood, and as he then 

 lived in Redcliff" Street, on the Somersetshire side 

 of the Avon, it is most probable that he was born 

 in that same locality. F. C. H. 



The "-History of Ireland" (2'"^ S. viii. 250.) — 

 The author of that curious " History of Ireland " 

 forming vol. xlii. of The Modern Pai't of an Uni- 

 versal History, was the notorious but erudite 

 impostor George Psalmanazar, inventor of the 

 Formosan Alphabet and Grammar. 



W. J. Fitz-Patrick. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 



jKett's Rebellion in Norfolk; being a History of the Great 

 Civil Commotion tJiat occurred at the Time of the Reformation 

 in the Reign of Edward VL, founded on the " Commoyson 



