The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-09-25 00:00:00

Attu Vubltrattons.

NATIONAL SIN—WHAT IS IT?
A LETTER to the Right Honourable Sir GEORGE GREY,
Bart., M.P., Her Majesty's Chief Secretary of State for the
Home Department, &c., &c.
By the Rev. HUGH M‘NEILE, D.D.,
Ready on TpURSDAYnext.

ARTHUR NEWLING, 27, Bold-street, Liverpool; J. ILvrcuann
and SON, London.

Ravi:attar.

NOTICES.

Sir Hugh of Lincoln ; or, an Examination of a cu-
rious Tradition respecting the Jews, with a Notice of
the Popular Poetry connected with it. By the Rev.
Abraham Hume, LL.D., F.S.A. London : John Rus-
sell Smith, 4, Old Compton-street, Soho. 1849.
TEIE interesting pamphlet, under the above title, was
read by Dr. Hume, before the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Liverpool, on the 13th November, 1848, and is
printed in the Transactions of the Society. It is here
given to the public in a somewhat enlarged form. The
tradition, which Dr. Hume justly considers as scandalous
and unfounded, is based upon a long-prevailing notion
that the Jews were yearly in the habit of sacrificing a child
by crucifixion, in ridicule of our Saviour's death ; and that
one instance of this occurred in the case the child of a no-
ble family of Lincoln. The story is to be found in
Matthew Paris, Chaucer, and some other authors ; and
has formed the subject of a ballad, of which several ver-
sions, some of them imperfect, are in existence. We give
the version furnished by Dr. Hume himself, who conceives
the ballad not to be older than the close of the 16th, or the
17th century.
SIR HUGH OF LINCOLN, OR THE JEW'S DAUGHTER.
'Twas on a summers's morning,
Some scholars were playing at ball ;
When out came the Jew's daughter
And lean'd her back against the wall.
She said unto the fairest boy
Come here to me, Sir Hugh."
4' No ! I will not," said he,
Without my playfellows too."
She took an apple out of her pocket,
And trundled it along the plain;
And who was readiest to lift it,
Was little Sir Hugh, again.
,She took him by the milk-white hen',
An' led him through many a hall,
Until they came to one stone chamber,
Where no man might hear his call.
She set him in a goolden chair,
And jogg'd him with a pin;
And called for a goolden cap
To houl' his heart's blood in.

. She tuk him by the yellow hair,
An' also by the feet ;
An' she threw him into the deep draw well,
It was fifty fadom deep.
Day over, the night came on,
And the scholars all went home,
Then every mother nad her son,
But little Sir Hugh's had none.

She put her mantle about her head,
Tuk a little rod in her han',
An' she says. Sir Hugh, if I fin' you here,
I will bate you for stayin' so long.
First she went to the Jew's door,
But they were fast asleep ;
An' then she went to the deep draw-well,
That was fifty fadom deep.
She says, "Sir Hugh, if you be here,
As I suppose you be,
If ever the dead or quick arise,
Arise and speak to me."
Yes mother, dear, I am here,
I know I have stayed very long :
But a little penknife was stuck in my heart,
Till the stream ran down full strong.

And mother, dear, when you go home,
Tell my playfellows all,
That I lost my life by leaving them
When playing that game of ball.
And ere another day is gone,
My winding-sheet prepare,
And bury me in the green church-yard,
Where the flowers are bloomin' fair.
Lay my Bible at my head,
My Testament at my feet;
The earth and worms -shall be my bed,
Till Christ and I shall meet.

Reminiscences of Twelve Months' Service in New Zea-
land as a Midshipman, .during the late Disturbances
in that Colony. By Lieut. H. F. M`Killop, R.N.
London : Richard Bentley, New Burlington-street.
1849. Bvo., pp. 275.

THE period most vitally important in the history of this
interesting colony—which is destined to be, at no distant
day, one of the most valuable of the British possessions
in the Pacific—was probably that over which this little
brochure extends; viz., from the beginning of 1846 to
1847. The early progress of the settlements founded in
New Zealand had been retarded from many concurrent
causes. From the time of Captain Cook's visit in 1769,
a feeling of bitterness had existed on the part of the
native population towards the whites, caused by the ag-
gressions and outrages practised by the crews of whalers
and other vessels calling at the Bay of Islands and Cook's
Straits. Many acts of unjustifiable insult had been com-
mitted, which had been terribly retaliated by the New
Zealanders. After the colonisation of the country by the
New Zealand Company, misunderstandings soon arose
out of the eagerness of the settlers to get possession of
tracts, for which the chiefs subsequently discovered, or
imagicted, that they had been very inadequately paid—
that, in fact, they had been taken advantage of. The
Government had also purchased large tracts, under simi-
lar easy terms ; and an unpleasant feeling had sprung up
between its officers and the Company. Even the mis-
sionaries were said not to have been guiltless of the charge
of land jabbing. Suits were brought by the natives for
increased prices for their lands, on the plea that they had
been duped, which were decided sometimes for and some-
times against the settlers; and the whole fabric of society
had become disorganised. The arrival of Governor Grey
was an opportune one ; and to his mingled firmness, sa-
gacity, and sense of justice in his treatment of the dis-
putes between the contending parties, is mainly to be
attributed the quelling of the disturbances and savage
butcheries which resulted.
The writer of the little work before us, who arrived out
in the Bay of Islands in H.M.S. Calliope in Dec. 1845,
and took part in the concluding operations against the
insurgent native chiefs, gives us a brief but succinct
sketch of the previous history of the colony, and the
causes which had led to the outbreak. His descriptions
of the leading rebels and the native allies of the British—
John Heki, Tomati Wake, Rangahiata, Pueha, &c.—are
very graphic. We give here a description of one of these
bloodthirsty desperadoes :