THE MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH.

AFTER the departure of Benjamin, Jacob being at length persuaded to go down into Egypt in the hope of meeting his long-lost son Joseph, "rose up from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him: his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt."* In the scene which the artist has so strikingly depicted, the venerable father and the newly discovered son are represented as meeting just without the suburbs of the Egyptian capital, which rears its magnificent towers and battlements on the banks of the Nile, while they are beautifully reflected in its transparent waters. Beyond, the pyramids elevate their colossal heads, at once a signal monument of human labour and of human enterprise. Below the horizon, dimly appears the island of Rhouda, upon which stood the celebrated Nilometer, said by some writers to have been erected by Joseph, during his regency in Egypt. The base of this column, which is the site of the tower now standing, is supposed to be the spot where Moses was left by his mother, in order to elude the cruel edict of Pharaoh. In the group on the foreground, Jacob and Joseph are seen embracing. Behind the latter is a splendid Egyptian car from which he had just descended, drawn by three milk-white steeds, richly caparisoned. By the former is the wagon in which he had travelled from the land of Canaan, drawn by two asses. Judah, who had pledged himself to his father for Benjamin's safety, appears behind the venerable man, raising his hands in an ecstasy of joy at the happy meeting; and near him are the several members of the patriarchal family with "their cattle and their goods."