Mar. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



227 



me the date or place of death of this John 

 Touchet, his issue, or any book or manuscript 

 where I might find information respecting him ? 



J. T— T. 



James, second Duke of Ormonde. — Are the 

 papers of this nobleman published ? if not, in 

 what collections, public or private, do they exist ? 



Seleucus. 



Fir-trees a Jacobite Emblem. — Gwent.lian 

 Davies will feel obliged by any information as to 

 whether, in England, fir-trees, planted near a 

 house, were considered to imply that its inhabi- 

 tants were favourable to the Pretender, as she has 

 heard an idea to this effect in Monmouthshire ? 



Sir John St. Clair was Deputy-Quarter-Master- 

 General under Braddock in America in 1755. 

 He was also a colonel in the array. I cannot 

 identify him by a reference to the families of 

 that name mentioned in Burke, and will be 

 thankful for any information in this regard, whe- 

 ther in relation to himself or his line. Serviens. 



Samaritan Pentateuch. — A copy of the Sama- 

 ritan Pentateuch is preserved in the ancient syna- 

 gogue at Nablous, for which an extraordinary 

 antiquity is claimed. The high priest, who has 

 the custody of it, asserts that it was written 

 thirteen years after the Israelites entered into the 

 land of promise ; and although it is manifestly not 

 of that age, still it is of considerable antiquity. 

 Can any reader of " N. & Q." refer an inquirer to 

 any writer who has discussed the question of its 

 age ? Walton, in the Prolegomena to his Polyglot, 

 and Basnage in his History of the Jews, discuss 

 the genuineness and authenticity of the Samaritan 

 Pentateuch ; but they give no opinion on this par- 

 ticular copy, which neither of tliem had seen. It 

 is believed that Dr. Wilson, in his Lands of the 

 Bible, has entered upon this question, but his 

 work is not accessible to the writer. A. B. 



Warrington. 



[Dr. Wilson has devoted sereral pages to the literature 

 of the Samaritans, in his Lands of the Bible, vol. ii. 

 pp. 73 — 77. Speaking of the Pentateuch at Nabulus, he 

 says: "Among the articles which the priest first showed 

 to us was a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, tolerably 



neatly written on paper They have many more 



copies than they showed us of the laws of Moses "in the 

 Hebrew language and true Hebrew (Samaritan) charac- 

 ter, and some of them are of the highest antiquity. They 

 have copies of the version of the Pentateuch in their own 

 Samaritan language, which is a mixture of Hebrew, Chal- 

 daic, and Syriac words, with peculiar grammatical inflec- 

 tions. They have an Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, 

 made, they said, by Heibat Allah of Cairo, and by Abu 

 'Obed (or' Abu Said) Dastan of Eshken, or Shechem. 

 The priest declared that it was executed 945 years ago. 



This gives it an antiquity to which it is not entitled, as 

 in many places it follows the Jewish version of Rabbi 



Saadi G^on Several MS. copies of the law were 



shown to us, including that which the Samaritans sup- 

 pose to be the most ancient of all, which was taken out of 

 the place of its deposit with extreme reluctance, the 

 priest declaring that he had avoided showing it to all the 

 Europeans who had visited him (producing another in its 

 stead) except to the Rev. Mr. Williams, the chaplain of 

 Bishop Alexander at Jerusalem. It was taken from a 

 box, covered with many folds of silk. This copy was not 

 on synagogue rolls, as many which he showed us were, 

 but on sheets of parchment. ' It was maintained respecting 

 it, that it was written by Abishua, the son of Phinehas, 

 the son of Eleazar, theson of Aaron (1 Chron. vi. 4.). 

 This plea of antiquit}' they have long been accustomed to 

 urge in its behalf. It did not appear to us to be so old as 

 some others which we saw, but this may be owing to the 

 great care which is taken of it. The handwriting was 

 remarkably good."] 



"Mines de F Orient " and " Le Secretaire turc." — 

 Can any correspondent say where and when the 

 above works were published ; what their contents ; 

 whether the first or both have been translated 

 into English ; and if copies of the originals exist in 

 our national library? I find the first mentioned 

 incidentally as — 



" Un ouvrage periodique peu connu et public en Alle« 

 magne sous le titre de Mines de V Orient," — 



and the second as — 



" Un livre devenu anjourd'hui extremement rare, et in- 

 titule : Le Secretaire turc, ou VArt de correspondre sans se 

 parler, sans se voir et sans s'^crire ; par le sieur Dti Vignau, 

 ancien secretaire d'ambassade en Turquie." 



A. Challsteth. 



[Both works are in the British Museum; the full title 

 of the first is. Mines de l' Orient, exploitSes par une SocietS 

 d' Amateurs, sous les auspices de M. le Comte Venceslas 

 Rzewtisky, 6 tom., Vienne, 1809 h 1818. See Brunet, 

 3Ianuel de Libraire, s. v. Fundgruben des Orients. Le 

 Secretaire turc will be found under Vignau, Sieur du. 

 See also Brunet, s. v. Du Vignau.] 



Sir Richard Clement. — In Baverstock's History 

 of Maidstone it is said that Sir Richard Clement, 

 of the Moat in Ightfield, married the widow of 

 Lord John Grey, grandson of Queen Elizabeth 

 Wydevile ; but in Collins's Peerage, by Sir E. 

 Brydges, his wife is stated to have been Lady 

 Anne Grey, aunt of Lord John, and eighth 

 daughter of the first Marquess of Dorset. Which 

 is correct ? Y. S. M. 



[Collins's account agrees with the pedigree of the Grey 

 family given in Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. p. 683.] 



Lord Poos' Petition Is the petition of William 



Lord Roos of Hamlake, against Sir Robert Tyr- 

 whitt of Ketilby, which occurs in the Parliament 

 Rolls of 13 Henry IV., to be found in print, and 

 where ? Any information will be acceptable to 



A. 



[This petition is in Norman French, and is printed in 

 Rotuli Parliamentorum, or Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii. 

 p. 649. fol.] 



