valley of Hamongog with graves."

I refrain from quoting the remarks made by Napoleon, at St. Helena, respecting Russia, and the likelihood of her ultimately subjugating Western Europe, as your readers must be familiar with them from the writings of O'Meara and others.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

DERIVATION OF THE WORD "BIGOT."

At p. 80. of Mr. Trench's admirable little volume On the Study of Words, an etymology is assigned to the word bigot, which is, I think, clearly erroneous:

"Two explanations of it are current," writes Mr. Trench, "one of which traces it up to the early Normans, while they yet retained their northern tongue, and to their often adjuration by the name of God; with sometimes a reference to a famous scene in French history, in which Rollo, Duke of Normandy, played a conspicuous part: the other puts it in connexion with beguines, called often in Latin beguttæ, a name by which certain communities of pietist women were known in the Middle Ages."

I agree with Mr. Trench in thinking, that neither of these derivations is the correct one. But I am obliged, quite as decidedly, to reject that which he proceeds to offer. He thinks that we owe—

"Bigot rather to that profound impression which the Spaniards made upon all Europe in the fifteenth and the following century. Now the word bigote," he continues, "means in Spanish 'moustachio;' and as contrasted with the smooth, or nearly smooth, upper lip of most other people, at that time the Spaniards were the 'men of the moustachio'.... That they themselves connected firmness and resolution with the mustachio; that it was esteemed the outward symbol of these, it is plain from such phrases as 'pombre de bigote,' a man of resolution; 'tener bigotes,' to stand firm. But that in which they eminently displayed their firmness and resolution in those days was their adherence to whatever the Roman see imposed and taught. What then more natural, or more entirely according to the law of the generation of names, than that this striking and distinguishing outward feature of the Spaniard should have been laid hold of to express that character and condition of mind which eminently were his, and then transferred to all others who shared the same?"

Of this it must be admitted, that "se non e vero, e ben trovato." And the only reason for rejecting such an etymology is the existence of another with superior claims.

Bigot is derived, as I think will be hardly doubted on consideration, from the Italian bigio, grey. Various religious confraternities, and especially a branch of the order of St. Francis which, from being parcel secular and parcel regular, was called "Terziari di S. Francesco," clothed themselves in grey; and from thence were called Bigiocchi and Bigiotti. And from a very early period, the word was used in a bad sense.

Menage, in his Origini della 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, perchè 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 hypocrite, 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 physician," 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 predecessor except Francœur, as noted in the preface; but another has been recently pointed out to me. There was a work compiled for the use of the Dominicans, entitled Kalendarium Perpetuum juxta ritum Sacri ordinis prædicatorum, s. p. n. Dominici. The copy now before me, Rome, 1612, 8vo., is said to be "tertio emendatum," which probably 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 explanation of the thirty-fifth almanac, contains the statement 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 mention of them either in your pages or elsewhere. Perhaps some older instances may be yet produced.

A. De Morgan.

Minor Notes.

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, observed, 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.: Newcastle-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 committees of the arrondissement of Valenciennes:

"A sa majesté impériale Le Szar Nicholas, souverain et autocrate de toutes les Russies."

"Oho! ta vanité sera ta perte; elle isole la Russie; tes successeurs te maudiront à jamais."

Philip Strange.

Logan or Rocking Stones.—The following extract from Sir C. Anderson's Eight Weeks' Journal in Norway, &c. in 1852, under July 21, may interest your Devonshire and Cornish readers:

"Mr. De C——k, a most intelligent Danish gentleman, told me, that when a proprietor near Drammen, 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