IGNORANS.
Cognation of the Jews and Lacedemonians.—In the 12th chapter of the 1st Book of Maccabees the letter of Jonathan, the High Priest, to the Lacedemonians is given, in which he claims their amity. This is followed by a letter of Arcus, the Spartan king, in answer, and which contains this assertion:
"It is found in writing that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham."
Have critics or ethnographers commented on this passage, which, to say the least, is remarkable?
As I am quoting from the Apocrypha, I may point out the anomaly of these books being omitted in the great majority of our Bibles, whilst their instructive lessons are appointed to be read by the Church. Hundreds of persons who maintain the good custom of reading the proper lessons for the day, are by this omission deprived, during the present season, of two chapters out of the four appointed.
MANLEIUS.
REPLIES.
FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION OF TASSO.
On referring to my memoranda, I find that the copy of Fairfax's translation of the Gerusalemme Liberata of Tasso, containing the third variation of the first stanza, noticed in my last, has the two earliest pages reprinted, in order that the alteration might be more complete, and that the substitution, by pasting one stanza over another (as the book is usually met with) might not be detected. A copy with the reprinted leaf is, I apprehend, still in the library of the late William Wordsworth; and during the last twenty years I have never been able to procure, or even to see, another with the same peculiarity.