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" I

we are always sure to find you in your business. Indeed master Joseph, our lord is happy in having such servant as yourself. I do not wonder that both he and my lady have such an high esteem for you.' "I tell you Mrs. Syrena," replied Joseph, "I do nothing but what is my duty. My honourable master and lady have a right to my best services, and I should be shamefully wanting in my duty to God, to them, and myself, if I did not study to my utmost to promote their honour, advantage and delight." am glad, Sir," replied Syrena," that your virtuous sentiments concur so exactly with my own. And I can tell you Mr. Joseph, that more tenderness is due from you to your amiable mistress, than perhaps you are aware of." "I know," said he, " that my lady is amiable and virtuous, and merits my humblest regard, which I shall ever be ready to render her with the utmost pleasure." "She is virtuous," said Syrena," and yet I can tell you Joseph, she cannot help being sensible of your attractions, and entertaining the fondness of affection for you. I wrung the painful secret with the greatest difficulty from her lips; and you, my friend, may avail yourself of your happiness, and embrace a favour which she would deny to any but yourself, was he even the first prince of the blood." Rejoined the patriarch, "My master and mistress are daily loading me with favours, of which I am altogether unworthy; I believe their readiness to add more as occasion may offer; but the lips that would insinuate so much as an hint contrary to my mistress's honour, ought to be sealed in everlasting silence." "Not so fast, Sir," returned she, "I tell you she loves you, and longs for your embrace. But I enjoin you to conceal the fatal truth and improve it to your own advantage." She ended here, and returned to her lady, who waited impatiently the issue of this

conversation.

Syrena failed not to enlarge upon her own sagacity and address, she related the converse she had had with Joseph, in the manner which would best flatter her lady's passion; and from the whole she inferred,

that it was caution in the Hebrew which caused him to feign ignorance. But she was sure that amidst all his care to conceal it, she could discern flashes of passion dart from his amorous eye, when the name of Sabrina was mentioned. "In short, Madam," continued she," the matter must be between you and him, for I perceive he is so cautious, that he will admit none into the secret beside yourselves. And indeed I cannot blame him, when I consider how false and deceitful the greater part of people are.

You

know, Madam, he is young, and a stranger to intercourse with our sex; and who knows how far modesty may keep him back from an avowal; besides, he may fear your ladyship's resentment, in case your passion should not be answerable to his."

"O Syrena!" replied the wife of Potiphar, “ thou knowest that in our sex an avowal is hard, even when the object is lawful; but how much more so must it be when the object is criminal, and an avowal is the display of our guilt and shame. Yet I would even venture to confess my love to him, could I but hope the haughty youth would embrace my proposal: but, O Syrena! should he refuse it, then should I be undone! His person is amiable and lovely, his conduct affable and polite, his spirit open and bene-volent; but his virtue, Syrena! I fear his virtue is inflexible." "O Madam," replied the swarthy duenna, "no virtue can be proof against such charms as yours. The Hebrew will fall an easy victim, when he is assured of your affection."

Encouraged by the assurances of Syrena, she resolves to abandon shame and modesty at once, and solicit Joseph to her embrace. To this purpose she proposeth an airing, and requires him to attend her, in Potiphar's absence, in her chariot. As they were on the way, with a scarlet blush upon her countenance, and desire sparkling in her eyes, with a faultering voice that bespoke the blackness of her guilt, she said," Joseph, you cannnot be ignorant of my desire for your company, and yet I can tell you, that if your bosom is proof against love, love even to me, I may

rue the day that ever I beheld your too amiable face. For I love you, Joseph; my pain forces me to confess my shame, I have trusted my honour in your hand, I hope your will act with your usual gallantry." She said, then leaning her head on his snowy bosom, melted into a flood of tears, which she endeavoured, but in vain, to conceal. Astonished at this open. declaration, it was some time before he was capable of speech or reflection.

After a long silence, accompanied with tears upon her part, and heart-felt sighs upon his, not without struggles between corruption and virtue, in broken accents he replied. "Your honour, my lady, is ever safe with your unworthy servant, whose greatest glory is to be faithful to the trust reposed in him. But before I explain myself upon this matter, will your ladyship give me leave to relate an affair which is better known among the children of Shem, than among the descendants of Ham." After leave obtained, with hope of extricating himself from his present difficulty, and working some suitable impression upon the mind of his mistress, he thus began.

"When our first parents, Adam and Eve, originally dropped from the all-forming hand, they were perfectly free from any bias to evil: not one corrupt inclination possessed their peaceful breasts. This calm serenity, this sweet composure, continued with them as long as they retained their innocence. But to their sad experience, they ere long four.d that the effect of guilt is dire alarm and incessant perturbation. Our benevolent Creator was pleased to put the parents of mankind in possession of the paradisaical garden, where a perpetual spring cheered the blessed mound, and every salubrious vegetable. All that thine eyes behold, all that the earth produceth, Adam, is thine,' saith the munificent Deity. I give thee leave to use thy utmost freedom with all the produce of the earth. One tree, and only one, I forbid thee to touch. Its fertile boughs, indeed, bend low beneath. its fruit, which pendant hangs attractive of the eye. This Adam, is the forbidden tree. These are the

fruit, to taste of which is death. Beware of it man, come not near it Adam, for on the day thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. Incautious Eve, the mother of humanity, in an evil hour was prevailed upon by the arch apostate, to eat the prohibited morsel, and awful was the consequence. Having eat thereof herself, she became her husband's first seducer, and drew him, contrary to the light of his own conscience, to partake of her guilt. This done, the horrors of Gehenna tortured their guilty consciences, and they knew not where to fly to shun the threatened death. The evening arrived, the sky had lost its serenity, the beasts their wonted tameness, the flowers loose the greatest part of their fragrance, and all nature seemed to wear a melancholy aspect. On the evening, just as radiant Phoebus concealed himself in the western ocean, the Divine Creator himself comes down into the garden, to call the delinquents to account for their conduct. Awful was the change. They cannot now stand with filial respect and confidence in the sacred presence; much less did they long for the approach of the celestial visitant as heretofore; but basely fly from the sight of their maker, to hide themselves from his researches; whose amiable presence erewhile, they counted the most exalted blessing. Nor did the Eternal himself appear at this time with that friendly and familiar air as before, but with resentment glowing on his awful countenance. The thicket unable to conceal the parents of mankind from the piercing eye of Omniscience, he arraigns them at his equitable bar, hears their poor defence, and denounceth upon them the fatal sentence. Since then, none may hope to touch forbidden fruit with impunity. You, my lady, are like the interdicted tree. Your amiable personal excellencies display themselves in the most alluring manner; but they are forbid the enjoyment of all men, my lord alone excepted. He alone may approach you with familiarity. He alone may lawfully enjoy. Was I, Madam, to dare injuriously to betray my master, and to dishonour his amiable consort, I should

act as a villain, and ungrateful traitor to the best of masters, and as a rebel against the God of my ancestors, whose tremendous wrath I should thereby awake; and you yourself, Madam, upon cool reflection, would curse me for perpetrating the execrable deed. I love you, mistress, and would protect, not dishonour you. I love my honourable lord, and would not betray him. I love my God, and would not offend him. Permit me, then, Madam, to intreat you to stifle a passion so destructive to your honour and tranquillity; which, if indulged, will yield the most bitter reflections, and expose to the greatest of dangers."

"Ah Joseph !" replied the wife of Potiphar," what a well-invented story your icy heart has contrived, in order to evade the honours proffered you? What needless scruples does that whim of religion and virtue inspire you with? What injury would thereby be done to your master, Joseph; I am still his; always ready to oblige him, and should never behave to him with the greater distance. We have nothing to fear, so long as we are prudent enough to conceal our intercourses from the curious eye. I tell you, again, I love you, Joseph."

"Madam," returned the Hebrew, "even in my father's family, in the case of my only sister, I have a loud monitor, that bids me beware of the sin of uncleanness." "I pray now let us have it," said she, "I suppose it is some whimsical religious story, tending to the same purpose.'

It is a truth, Madam, the remembrance of which, will give occasional sorrow to me to my dying day My sister, young, amiable, and curious, longing to see more of the world than her father's house admitted of, went forth into a neighbouring principality, at a time, when a magnificent festival, in honour of their patron deity, was solemnized. Amongst the multitude who attended, were Shechem, the young prince of the Hivites, and Tamar his sister. Dinah, young and vain, was attended with a gaudy train selected out of my father's menials, and she herself in elegant