June 17. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



561 



Menage, in his Origini delta Lingua Italiana, 

 •under the word Bizoco, writes : 



" Persono secolare vestita di abito di religione. Quasi 

 'bigioco' perche ordinariamente gli Ipocriti, e coloro 

 che si fanno dell' ordine di S. Francesco si vestono di 

 bigio." 



And Sansovino on the Decameron says that — < 



" Bizocco sia quasi Bigioco, o Bigiotto, perche i Terziari 

 di S. Francesco si veston di bigio." 



Abundance of instances might be adduced of 

 the use of the term bizocco in the sense of hypo- 

 crite, or would-be saint. And the passage which 

 Mr. Trench gives after Richardson from Bishop 

 Hall, where bigot is used to signify a pervert to 

 Romanism, " he was turned both bigot and physi- 

 cian," seems to me to favour my etymology rather 

 than that from the Spanish ; as showing that the 

 earliest known use of the term was its application 

 to a Popish religionist. The "pervert" alluded 

 to had become that which cotemporary Italians 

 were calling a bigiotto. Must we not conclude 

 that Bishop Hall drew his newly-coined word 

 thence ? T. A. T. 



Florence. 



BOOK OF ALMANACS. 



When I published this work, I knew of no pre- 

 decessor except Francceur, as noted in the pre- 

 face ; but another has been recently pointed out 

 to me. There was a work compiled for the use 

 of the Dominicans, entitled Kalendarium Perpe- 

 tuumjuxta ritum Sacri ordinis prcedicatorum, s.p. n. 

 Dominici. The copy now before me, Rome, 1612, 

 8vo., is said to be " tertio emendatum," which pro- 

 bably signifies the fourth edition. It contains the 

 thirty-five almanacs, with rules for determining 

 epacts and dominical letters from a.d. 1600 to 

 2100, and a table for choosing the almanac when 

 the epact and letter are known. 



This work must have been compiled before the 

 reformation of the calendar. A note in explana- 

 tion of the thirty-fifth almanac, contains the state- 

 ment that a.d. 1736 belongs to that calendar, and 

 to the letters D.C. This is true of the old style, 

 and not of the new. 



It seems, then, that Books of Almanacs are older 

 than the Gregorian reformation: that they may 

 have been completely forgotten, may be inferred 

 from my book never having produced any men- 

 tion of them either in your pages or elsewhere. 

 Perhaps some older instances may be yet pro- 

 duced. A. De Morgan. 



Distances at which Sounds have been heard. — 

 The story of St. Paul's clock striking being heard 



by a sentry at Windsor is well known, and I 

 believe authentic. Let me add the following : — 

 The Rev. Hugh Salvin (who died vicar of Alston, 

 Cumberland, Sept. 28, 1852) mentions an equally 

 remarkable instance whilst he was chaplain on 

 board H.M.S. " Cambridge," on the coast of South 

 America : 



" Our salutes at Chancay were heard at Callao, 

 though the distance is thirty-five miles, and several 

 projecting headlands intervene, and the wind always 

 blows northward. The lieutenant of the Arab store- 

 ship, to whom the circumstance was mentioned, ob- 

 served, that upon one occasion the evening gun at 

 Plymouth was heard at Ilfracomb, which is sixty 

 miles off, and a mountainous country intervenes." — 

 Journal of the Rev. H. S. Salvin, p. 64., 12mo. : New- 

 castle-on-Tyne, 1829. 



Balliolensis. 



Anagram. — The accompanying anagram I saw, 

 some weeks back, in a country paper ; perhaps 

 you will give it a local habitation in " N. & Q." 

 It is said to be by a president of one of the com- 

 mittees of the arrondissement of Valenciennes : 



" A sa majeste imperiale Le Szar Nicholas, souverain 

 et autocrate de toutes les Russies." 



" Oho ! ta vanite sera ta perte ; elle isole la Russie ; 

 tes successeurs te maudiront a jamais." 



Philip Strange. 



Logan or Hocking Stones. — The following ex- 

 tract from Sir C. Anderson's Eight Weeks' Journal 

 in Norway, Sec. in 1852, under July 21, may in- 

 terest your Devonshire and Cornish readers : 



" Mr. De C k, a most intelligent Danish gentle- 

 man, told me, that when a proprietor near Draramen, 

 was at Bjornholm Island, in the Baltic, he was told 

 there were stones which made a humming noise when 

 pushed, and on examination they proved to be rocking- 

 stones ; on his return, he found on his own property 

 several large stones, which, on removing the earth 

 around them, were so balanced as to be moveable. If 

 this be an accurate statement, it tends to strengthen 

 the notion that stones, laid upon each other by natural 

 causes, have, by application of a little labour, been 

 made to move, as the stones at Brimham Craggs in 

 Yorkshire ; and this seems more likely than that such 

 immense masses should have been ever raised by me- 

 chanical force and poised." 



Balliolensis. 



<&utxit£. 



A RUBENS QUERY. 



There is a somewhat curious mystery with 

 regard to certain works of the immortal Rubens, 

 which some of your readers, who are connoisseurs 

 in art, may possibly assist to dispel. Lommeline, 

 who engraved the finest works of Rubens, has 

 left a print of " The Judgment of Paris," which 



