2"0S. VI. 139., Aug. 28. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



173 



THE TESTAMENT OF THE TWELVE PATKIARCHS. 



(2-* S. vi. 88.) 



A very good copy of this book (which Dibdln 

 calls " one of the most popular manuals of the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ") is now be- 

 fore me. The title-page is the same as that of the 

 copy referred to by G. N"., but is an earlier edi- 

 tion. " London : printed by M. Clark for the 

 Company of Stationers, 1681." It has in the lower 

 half of the page a very good woodcut, within an 

 oval, in the style of Le Petit Bernard, which I 

 take to be the Israelites dancing before the golden 

 calf; and has a full-length figure on a single page, 

 with verses beneath, before each " Testament." 

 These woodcuts, though originally good, have evi- 

 dently seen considerable service. It is in black 

 letter, small 12mo. After an epistle " To the 

 Christian Reader," signed " Richard Day," of five 

 pages, comes — 



" The Testament of Ja^ made at his 'death to his 

 Twelve sons, the Patriarchs, concerning what should be- 

 tide them in the last days ; gathered out of Genesis, 48. 

 49., and added unto this Book." 



In the middle of this page is a woodcut of Jacob 

 bolstered up in bed with his sons about him, in 

 the same style as that on the title-page. The 

 following lines are below : — 



, " Come liearlien my Sons, two things I give. 



My blessing, and my ban ; 

 TJie first to tkein tfiat godly live ; 

 TIte last to wicked man." 



This Testament of Jacob is on the six following 

 pages. Then follow on 133 pages without pagin- 

 ation " The Testament of the Patriarchs " in their 

 order, and it concludes with the account in two 

 pages how these Testaments were first found, and 

 translated out of Greek into Latin. It appears 

 from the Epistle to the Christian Reader that this 

 Testament of Jacob was added by Richard I)ay, 

 son of the famous printer John Day, who pub- 

 lished editions of the book in 1577 and 1581. 

 From the title-page of this last edition, as given 

 by Dibdin (" Now Englished by A. G.") the 

 English translation is ascribed to Arthur Golding. 

 The Testaments themselves, as your remarks have 

 shown, are apocryphal. Watt in his Bib. Brit., 

 article " Whiston," however, gives a list of Dis- 

 sertations by him, one of which is " A Dissertation 

 to prove the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 

 equally Canonical. 1727." 



An early possessor of my copy has enriched it 

 on a blank page with his MS. address to the 

 Christian Reader. The first verse is as follows 

 (there are six in all) : — 



" Here is the patriarch's Life 

 and conuersation) 

 But to belceue in Christ is true 

 JohnGcha. [Saluatlon]. Act 4'" 12 



and y« 47 verse." 



A subsequent owner, " Mary Cox, 1713," sub- 

 joins this to her autograph : — 



" In serueing God if I neglect my nebour. 

 My zeal bath lost its proof and I my Labour." 



D. S. 



INVOLUNTARY VERSIFICATION. 



(2°'» S. vi. 121.) 



The following appeared in the Athenceum of 

 August 15, 1846 (No. 981.) : it will correct and 

 amplify some of Mr. Nichols's instances : — 



" The Master of Trinity College, Dr. Whewell, a for- 

 tunate man in many respects, was yet unfortunate enough, 

 five and twenty years ago, to fall into one of Nature's 

 traps. He made some verses in the same manner in 

 which M. Jourdain made prose. In his work on Me- 

 chanics, he happened to write literatim and verbatim, 

 though not lineatim, as follows : — 



" ' There is no force, however great. 

 Can stretch a cord, however line. 

 Into a horizontal line. 

 Which is accurately straight.' 

 •' The author -will never hear the last of this : — he can- 

 not expect it. Seeing we know not what edition of this 

 tetrastich, the other day, in one of the reviews, we thought 

 that possibly the legitimate use might be made of it. 

 The legitimate use of an accidental versification is the 

 justification, by means of it, of some existing stanza. No 

 kind of rhythm or metre is permanently pleasing to the 

 ear, unless it be one of those into which the ear sometimes 

 falls of itself. Some one (we forget who) of our older 

 critics, in illustration of iambic metre, says, ' Such verse 

 we make when we are writing prose; such verse we 

 make in common conversation.' Now, it so happens — 

 and we believe has not been noticed — that Dr. Whewell's 

 fit of the absent muse precisely copies a French stanza, 

 used, among others, by Voltaire, — as in the following ad- 

 vice to the English : — 



" ' Travaillez pour les connoisseurs 

 De tons les tems, de tous les ages, 

 Et repandez sur vos ouvrages 

 La simplicity de vos moeurs.' 

 A little before the occurrence of the preceding. Prof. 

 Woodhouse, in his Treatise on Astronomy, was more un- 

 fortunate than Mr. Whewell ; — for he only made the first 

 half of a stanza, — and left the undergraduates to add the 

 second. To understand the meaning, it must be remem- 

 bered that Mr. Woodhouse was then superintending, for 

 the University, the completion of the Observatory-, which 

 was to be his own official residence ; and some dissatis- 

 faction had been expressed at the expense of ornamenting 

 the grounds. So, between them, Woodhouse and the 

 wags made the following : — 

 " ' If a spectator 

 Be at the equator. 

 At the point represented by A : — 

 So says Mr. Woodhouse, 

 Who lives in the good house 

 For which other people must pay.' 

 " The review above alluded to t.ikes notice of an older 

 commencement of a stanza, from ' Smith's Optics,' which 

 has not yet found its other half: — we venture to suggest 

 one; — 



" ' If parallel rays 



Come contrarj' ways, 

 And fall upon opposite sides j — 



