been before recovered. The physiognomy of the Jews it is impossible to mistake; and the splashes of clay with which their bodies are covered, the air of close and intense labour that is conveyed by the grouping on the left side of the picture, and above all, the Egyptian taskmaster seated with his heavy baton, whose remorseless blows would doubtless visit the least relaxation of the slaves he was driving from their wearisome and toilsome task of making bricks and spreading them to dry in the burning sun of Egypt, give a vivid impression of the exactitude of the Scripture phrase, "all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour." The inscription at the top of the picture, to the right, reads, " Captives brought by his majesty," (Moris,) "to build the temple of the great god." that Moeris was the king "that arose, that knew not Joseph, and that reduced the children of Israel to servitude;" or, more probably, that the family or gang of Israelites which are here represented, had been marched up from Goshen, and attached especially to the building of the temples at Thebes. This was also the case with prisoners of war.

This means either

The group of Egyptians to the right of the picture affords also a confirmation of the literal correctness of the inspired narrative, and of the uniformity of all things in Egypt. We read in the 5th chapter of Exodus, that when Moses and Aaron had been before Pharaoh, "he said, Behold the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens. And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of bricks which they did make hereto

fore ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof." In consequence of this arbitrary order, "the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task, in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore?" Exod. v. 6-14. The picture before us shows that this cruel mode of procedure had always been the practice during the bondage in Egypt. Two of the Egyptian officers over the Israelites, sufficiently distinguished from them by their head-dresses and complexions, are compelled by the blows of the taskmasters over them, to bear themselves the vessels of clay and the brick yoke, and to complete the work which they had failed to exact from the captives entrusted to their charge. That these men had not come forth to labour, is sufficiently indicated by the right hand figure with the yoke, who, having not taken up his burden, has not yet girt his loins, like his companions and all the other labourers in the picture, and also according to the invariable practice of the east, but still wears his dress loose, after the fashion of the officer who is sitting in the centre with the baton, and of the superior taskmaster, (probably the personage by whom the tomb was excavated,) who is represented as beating the officer, his companion.

This incident conveys a fearful impression of the rigour of the bondage.

We also find in this most interesting picture, the full establishment of our conjecture in considering the Scripture history, that the Israelites would adopt the dress and man

ners of the Egyptians. The cap worn by them is the ancient Memphitic cap, which appears on the monuments of the era of the pyramids, and of the seventeenth dynasty. The wig worn by the Egyptians in the picture before us, the monuments show to have been an innovation which was probably introduced by the eighteenth dynasty. It was the universal custom to shave the head and beard in Egypt. But it may be observed that in this picture the Israelites have their beards half grown, to denote the abject and slavish nature of servitude, which did not allow them the leisure to attend even to this necessary act of cleanliness. This was a common mode of denoting earnestness and haste with the Egyptian artists. In the stupendous reliefs at Ipsambul, Sesostris fights his battles unshaven; and even appears in this condition before the gods, to denote the entire possession of his mind with the purpose before him.

Though this picture may be already familiar to the reader in some form or other, it was thought better to give here a large exact representation of the plate of Rosellini, whence all those copies have been taken, in order to convey some idea of the extent to which it will subserve the illustration of Scripture.

Great, then, as were the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, and marvellous as are the remains of the mighty works they accomplished, it is only as the remorseless oppressors of God's chosen people that they are known to sacred history; and to illustrate the history and the manners of that once despised and persecuted race whom they thought to grind to the very dust beneath the hoof of their oppression, is the best and noblest purpose which the gorgeous relics of ancient grandeur will subserve.