gna §, No 1., Jan, 5.56.) 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
15 
about the building of the steeple, I espied within a grassce 
bush the skull of some dead corps, having in the upmost 
part of it alittle 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 aman 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. 
NEW TESTAMENT IN FRENCH AND LATIN. 
(1% S. xii. 450.) 
From the brief description given by Mr. Orror, 
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 Estrangelo, had also the following in 
Latin: 
“Liber sacrosancti Evangelii de Jesu Christo Domino 
et Deo nostro. Reliqua hdc Codice comprehensa pagina 
proxima indicabit. Diy. Ferdinandi Imperatoris desig- 
nati jusstii et liberalitate, characteribus et lingua Syra, 
Jesu Christo yernacula, divino ipsius ore consecrata, & 
Joh. Evangelista Hepraica picTa, scriptorio prelo dili- 
genter expressa.” 
Hence the expression in the title of this dual ver- 
sion, “selon la vérité Hébraique.” 
Won constat that any MS. of the New Testa- 
ment 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 Aramean. 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, 
&e. The following passages may be used as a 
test for ascertaining whether this New Testament 
“selon la vérité Hébraique” be or be not a ver- 
sion from the Syriac; for if from the Syriac, 
Matt. xi.19., “al edccadOn 1} copia amd Trav TE KV GY 
airjs,” will read “by their arts or works ;” 
Matt. xxiii. 26., “kal ris rapowidos,” will read 
“brim” or “ handle ;” and Acts xviii. 7., “ dvéuare 
lodarov oeSouevov,” will read “in the name of 
Titus, who feared God.” (See Hug. i., ss. 63. 69. ; 
Seiler, 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. Bucxton, 
Lichfield. 1 
CHURCHDOWN : SIMILAR LEGENDS AT DIFFERENT 
PLACES. 
(1* 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, and he 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 
