Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/166

 158

NOTES AND QUERIES.

. N 8., Fun. 23. '56.

16.), is more explicit than like documents of the present age. It is absurd to suppose, with Dr. Wilson, that the Shomerim desired to join in building a temple for the Jews at Jerusalem ; for they have never yet given up the point that Ge- rizim, and not Jerusalem, was the dwelling-place of Jehovah. The pleaders for Gerizim (Josephus, Ant., xni. iii. 4.) were put to death, a different honorarium from that of modern pleaders at the bar of justice. The rancorous hatred is a fact, and its causes are numerous. Dr. Wilson quotes the discourse of Jesus with the woman of Samaria as opposed to the claims of the Shomerim. But this objection is easily explained. Our Saviour, who confined his mission exclusively to Israelites, visited the Shomerim two days, and allowed his disciples to deal with them as Israelites (Matt. x. 6., John iv. 5.). The woman with whom He con- versed urged the same claims (John iv. 9. 12. 20. 25.) as Salamah ibn Tobiah did to Dr. Wilson . (^Lands of the Bible, ii. 48.). These our Lord did not deny, but (John iv. 21.) includes the Shome- rim and Jews together as Israelites. The state- ment that "salvation was of the Jews" (v. 22.) means that the Messiah was to be of the tribe of Judah (Jews). The hour, however, has -not yet come when the Israelites neither in Gerizim nor at Jerusalem (v. 21.) shall worship the Father.

That time may be looked for when the Pope, France, and Austria shall possess Palestine, and drive out both the Jews and the remnant of Israel. Jesus rejected the Kiblah of the Shome- rim (John iv. 22.), but not their claim as de- scendants of Jacob, whose well they possessed. It is remarkable that, to this Shomerith, Jesus openly declared himself the Messiah (v. 26.) of whom she spake, although He had withheld that declaration to the Jews. (See Kuinoel in loco.) The Shomerim believe in a day of resurrection and judgment, which some of the Jews (the Sad- ducees) denied. But setting aside the negative, what are the positive proofs of their claims ? These may be found in the authorities before quoted ("N. & Q." 1 st S. viii. 626.), and in Dr. Wilson: they comprise genealogy, physiological characters, liturgical ceremonies, the possession of ancient lands, wells, tombs, architectural remains, coins, and traditions ; contemporary history, as Jose- phus, the New Testament, Epiphanius, Eusebius, or Jerome ; a language and literature ; but, above all, the custody of the Pentateuch, from which they derive their name Shomerim, keepers or preservers of the Mosaic law. There are persons in Egypt and India who claim to be Shomerim and de- scendants of Israel. The present Shomerim of Sichem are reduced to twenty families. Their function appears to be nearly accomplished, that of handing down the text of Moses, from which the Alexandrine version in Greek was made (Eich., A. T., ii. 387.), pure to this remote

age, to be fixed in the permanency of modern typography. T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOOBB.

(2 nd S. i. 5455.)

I hope to be able, in a few days, to furnish ABHBA with the information he desires regarding Dr. Millar's letter in support of Wolfe's claims to the authorship of the well-known ode on the death of Sir John Moore.

In the meantime I have referred to my file of Currick's Morning Post for 1815, and in which I believe the ode originally appeared. I found the poem after a little delay, and as it may interest ABHBA and other of your readers to see the original preamble and signature, I send it. The initials are, as you may perceive, " W. C." Wil- liam Cowper was dead at this time, so he may be regarded as hors de combat. It is curious that the memoir of Wolfe in Wills's Illustrious and Dis- tinguished Irishmen, makes no mention of the ode on the burial of Sir John Moore, and on which his literary celebrity can alone rest. Byron con- sidered it the finest ode in the language. My opinion is that Wolfe, and no one else, wrote it. He may possibly have intended the initials to in- dicate " Wolfe Clerk," or, what is much more likely, a typographical transposition of the letters may have occurred. The signature, however, is worthy the notice of all those who dispute Mr. Wolfe's parentage of the ode.

WILLIAM JOHN FITZ-PATRICK.

" The fulloiving lines were written by a Student of Trinity College, on reading tlie affecting account of the Burial of Sir John Moore, in the Edinburgh Anmial Register. " Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,

O'er the grave where our hero we buried. " We buried him darkly, at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning.

" No useless coffin enclosed his breast*,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him ; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him. " Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow ; But we steadfastly gaz'd on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

" We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, ?

That the foe and the stranger would tread oer his

head, And we far away on the billow !


 * " Wound " in most editions.