JOSEPH.

THE history of Joseph, considered only as

an object of curiosity and literature, is one of the most valuable monuments of antiquity which have reached our times. It appears to have been the model of all the oriental writers; it is more pathetic than Homer's Odyssey, as a forgiving hero is more moving than he that gluts his vengeance.

We account the Arabs to have been the first authors of those ingenious fictions, which have been adopted in all other languages; but for my part, I meet with no tale among them comparable to that of Joseph: in almost every part it is of admirable beauty; and the conclusion draws forth tears of tenderness. It exhibits a youth in his sixteenth year, of whom his brothers are jealous. He is sold by them to a caravan of Ishmaelite merchants, carried into Egypt, and bought by one of the king's eunuchs. This eunuch had a wife, at which we are not to be startled, for the Kislar-aga of Constantinople, who is an arch-eunuch, the whole of his genital parts being abscinded, has a seraglio; his eyes and hands are left, and nature is still nature in him. The other eunuchs, having been deprived only of the two appendages of the generative organ, often make use of it; and Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, might very well be of the latter class of eunuchs.

Potiphar's wife becomes enamoured with young Joseph, who, faithful to his master as a most gracious benefactor, rejects her solicitations. Such behaviour turns her love into rancour, and she charges Joseph with an attempt to seduce

her.

her. This is the history of Hippolitus and Phædra, of Bellerophon and Stenobæa, of Hebrus and Damasippe, of Tanis and Peribea, of Marsillus and Hipodamia, of Peleus and Demenetta.

Which is the original of all these histories is not easily known; but the ancient Arabian authors have a passage relating to the transaction between Joseph and Potiphar's wife, which is very ingenious. The author supposes that Potiphar, hesitating between his wife and Joseph, did not look upon his wife's having torn a piece of Joseph's robe, as any weighty proof of the young man's crime. There was at that time, in the wife's chamber, a child in a cradle. Joseph said that she had forcibly taken hold of his robe, and torn it in the child's presence; Potiphar asked the child, who it seems was of a very pregnant wit for his age. The child said to Potiphar, see whether the robe be torn before or behind; if before, it shews that Joseph was for laying hands on your wife, and that she stood on her defence; if behind, it is plain your wife run after him. Thus did this child's genius clear up Joseph's innocence. This is the account given in the Alcoran from an ancient Arabian author, without informing us to whom this witty child belonged. If it was a son of dame Potiphar's, Joseph was not the first with whom this woman had desired an intimacy.

However it be, Joseph, according to the book of Genesis, is clapt up in prison, and happens to be with the king's cup-bearer and butler: both these state prisoners had a dream the same night, which Joseph explained to them; he foretold that within three days the cup-bearer

should

should be restored to favour, and the butler hanged, which fell out accordingly.

Two years after the king of Egypt had a very perplexing dream, on which his cup-bearer acquaints him, that there is in prison a Jewish young man who had not his equal for explaining dreams; he is sent for, and predicts the seven years of plenty and the seven barren years.

Here we must make a small interruption in the thread of the story, to observe the prodigious antiquity of the interpretation of dreams. Jacob had seen in a dream the mysterious ladder, at the top of which was God himself: in a dream he learned the method of multiplying his flocks, a method which has never succeeded but with him. Joseph himself had been informed by a dream, that he should one day be superior to his brothers. Abimelech, long before, had notice given him in a dream, that Sarah was Abraham's wife. See the article DREAM. We shall now return to Joseph.

On his having explained Pharaoh's dream, he was immediately created prime minister. It is a question whether now a-days any king, even in Asia, would bestow a post of that importance for having explained a dream; Pharaoh made up a match between Joseph and a daughter of Potiphar's. This Potiphar is said to have been high priest of Heliopolis, so that it could not be the eunuch his first master; or if it was, he must certainly have had another title than that of high priest; and his wife, had, been, a mother more than once.

In the mean time the famine came on, according to Joseph's prediction; and his minister, to rivet himself into the royal favour, so managed

naged matters, that all the people were under a necessity of selling their lands to Pharaoh; and the whole nation, to procure corn, became slaves to the crown. This may probably be the origin of despotism. It must be owned that never king made a better bargain; but, on the other hand, the people owed little gratitude and applause to the prime minister.

At length Joseph's father and brothers likewise came to want corn, for the famine was sore in all the land as for Joseph's reception of his brethren, his forgiving them, and loading them with kindness, we shall take the liberty to omit those particulars, observing only, that this history has every interesting part of an epic poem ; the sublime, the marvellous, the exposition, connection, discovery, and reverse of fortune. I know nothing more strongly marked with oriental genius.

The answer of good Jacob, Joseph's hoary father, to Pharaoh, ought deeply to impress every one who can read. What may your age be, said the king to him? A hundred and thirty years, answered the old man; and in this short pilgrimage, I have not seen one happy day.

LAWS.

IN the time of Vespasian and Titus, when the

Romans used to rip up and draw the Jews, a very wealthy Israelite, to avoid that disagreeable treatment, moved off with all the fruits of his usury, carrying with him to Eziongaber all his family, which consisted of his aged wife, a son, and a daughter; for retinue, he had two eunuchs,

one

one a cook, the other a kind of gardener and vine-dresser an honest Essene, who knew the Pentateuch by heart, officiated as his chaplain. All these going aboard a vessel at Eziongaber, crossed the Red Sea, as it is called, though it has nothing of that colour, and entered the gulph of Persia, in quest of the country of Ophir, without knowing where it lay: a dreadful storm drove this Hebrew family towards India, where the vessel was stranded on one of the Maldivia islands, then desert, but now called Padrabranca.

The old hunks and his joan were drowned; but the son and daughter, with the two eunuchs and chaplain, got safe to land. They made shift to save some of the provisions; and, having built huts in the island, began to be something reconciled to their disaster. The island of Padrabranca, you know, is five degrees from the line, and produces the largest cocoa-nuts and the best pine-apples in the whole world: it was not uncomfortable living there at a time when every where else the favoured people were slaughtered as fast as they could be found; but the good Essene frequently wept at thinking, that they might be the only Jews on earth, and that the seed of Abraham was drawing to an end.

What signify your tears, said the young Jew: it is in your power to prevent its ending; marry my sister. Very willingly, answered the chaplain; but it is against the law. I am an Essene, and have made a vow against marriage; and, by the laws, vows are to be observed: come of the Jewish race what will, never will I marry your sister, though she were ten times handsomer than she is.

My