2°'" S. VI. 133., July 17. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



55 



" N. & Q." And I hope the publication of it 

 will counteract the undue licence that has been 

 taken with this beautiful hymn by the congrega- 

 tional body. (See Congregational Hymn Book, 

 p. 534.) The manuscript of this hymn was for- 

 merly in the possession of Mrs. Diana Bindon, an 

 intimate companion of Lady Huntingdon, and 

 was recently purchased at the sale of Bindon 

 BJood's Library. Z. 



Hymn by the Countess of Huntingdon. 



1. 

 " Come thou Fount of every blessing. 

 Tune my heart to sing thj' praise : 

 Streams of Mercy never ceasing 



Call for loudest songs of praise. 

 Teach me some melodious sonnet, 



Sung by angel hosts above ; 

 Praise the Mount, I'm tix'd npon it, 

 Mount of thy redeeming love. 



" Here I'll set m_y Ebenezer, 



Hither by thy grace I'm come : 

 And I hope by thy good favour, 



Shortly to arrive at home. 

 Jesus sought me when a stranger. 



Wandering from the fold of God ; 

 He to rescue me from danger 



Interpos'd his precious biood. 



3. 



" Oh ! to grace how great a debtor 



Daily I'm constrain'd to be : 

 Let that grace now like a fetter 



Bind ray wandering heart to tliee. 

 Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. 



Prone to leave the God I love : 

 Here's ray heart, take and seal it : 



Seal it for thy courts above. 



" O that day when, freed from sinning, 



I shall see th}- lovely face : 

 Cloathed then in blood-wash'd linen. 



How I'll sing thy Sovereign grace. 

 Come, dear Lord, no longer tarry. 



Take my raptured soul awaj- ; 

 Send thy angels now to carry 



Me to realms of endless day. 



5. 

 " If thou ever didst discover 



To my faith the promised land. 

 Bid me now the stream pass over. 

 On that heavenly border stand. 

 Now surmount whate'er opposes 



Into thy erabraces fly: 

 Speak the word tliou didst to Mose.s, 

 Bid me got me up and die." 



Samaritans (2"'" S. v. 514.) — " Where may be 

 found the most complete history of this nation ? " 

 If the inquiry refer.'? to the Samaritans of the 

 wliole country of Samaria (^Shomei-onim), such 

 works as Prideaux's Connection, Calmet's Diction- 

 ary, IIorsley's.9e7-/non.9 XXIV. -XXVI., flengsten- 

 ])erg's Authentic, fles Pe/ito^, Wilson's Lands of the 

 Bible, and Robinson's Biblical Researches, should 



be read. If the inquiry is limited to the Shome- 

 rini (=keepers), now reduced to a few families at 

 Sychem (= Nablous = Sychar) near Gerizim, 

 so called also by Epiphanius (pv\aKes, and by Je- 

 rome custode.t, as keepers of the Law of Moses, 

 then those writings should be consulted which dis- 

 tinguish this fragment of Israel from the heathen 

 Samaritans, who desired to join in the recon- 

 struction of the temple at Jerusalem in the time 

 of Ezra ; such as Josephus' Antiquities, ix. xi. xii. 

 xiii. ; Scaliger's Antiquitates Eccle.n(B, 1682; Lu- 

 dolf's EpistolcE SamaritancB Sichetnitarum, 1684 ; 

 Hottinger's Exercitat. Anii-morinianis, 1644 ;^<^- 

 tis Eruditorum, 1691 ; Cellariiis Gentis Samaj-itana 

 Historia et Caremoniis, 169-3; Huntington (Bishop 

 of Raphoe), Epistolce, 1704; Reland's Dins, de 

 Samaritanis, 1706; Wolf's Bibloth. Heh.; Eich- 

 horn's Bepertorium, ix. xiv. ; Jahn's Biblische 

 Archiiol; Winer's Biblische Bealuw-terbuch; Pliny 

 Fisk in the American Missionary Herald, 1824; 

 Kitto's History oj" Palestine and Biblical Cyclopa- 

 dia; but above all, De Sacy's Correspondance des 

 Samaritains, S^-c, in Notices et Extr. des MSS. de 

 la Biblioth. du Roi, xii. See also " N. & Q.," P' 

 S. viii. 626. ; 2>"» S. i. 157. T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



Alderman Bachvell (2""* S. iv. 150.)— Backwell's 

 Bank, which your correspondent J. K.~mentions 

 as being one of those "robbed by Charles II. on 

 his shutting up the Exchequer," was I think 

 represented in the year 1760 by the firm Back- 

 well, Sir Wm. Hart, Croft & Co. As late as the 

 year 1770, and possibly later, Backwell's Bank 

 was current by his name ; Backwell, Hart, Croft 

 & Co. being then bankers in Pall Mall. In the 

 year 1810, when it stopped payment, it was re- 

 presented by the firm Devaynes, Dawes, Noble & 

 Co., so that no bank at this day represents Back- 

 well's. If the bank I have mentioned as existing 

 in the years 1760 and 1770, and down to 1810, 

 represented the bank alluded to by J. K. (and I 

 have no doubt that it did), it must have been one 

 of the oldest banks in this country ; as Lord Ma- 

 caulay in his History of Englaiid (vol. vii.) says, 

 that : — 



" In the reign of William, old men were still living 

 who could remember the daj's when there was not a single 

 banking house in the city of London. So late as the 

 time of the Restoration every trader had his own strong 

 box in his own house ; and when an acceptance was 

 presented to him, told down the crowns and Caroluses on 

 ins own counter. Before the end of the reign of Charles 

 the Second, a new mode of paj-ing and receiving money 

 had come into fashion among the merchants of the capital. 

 A class of agents arose, whose office it was to keep the 

 cash of the commercial houses." 



And in vol. i. of the same History we read : — 



" The Bankers were in the h.ibit of advancing large 

 sums of money to the Government. In return for these 

 advances they received assignments on the revenue, and 

 were repaid with interest as the ta.xcs came in. About 



