Some of these old Hebrew manuscripts were withdrawn from their covering of dust in the cabinets of the Jews about the year 1517. The learned Gilbert Gaumin, who was a perfect master of their language, translated them into Latin about the year 1535. They were afterwards printed and dedicated to Cardinal Bérule. The copies have become extremely scarce. Never were rabbinism, the taste for the marvellous and the imagination of the orientals displayed to greater excess. _Fragment of the Life of Moses._ A hundred and thirty years after the settling of the Jews in Egypt, and sixty years after the death of the patriarch Joseph, Pharaoh, while sleeping, had a dream. He saw an old man holding a balance; in one scale were all the inhabitants of Egypt; in the other was an infant, and this infant weighed more than all the Egyptians together. Pharaoh forthwith called together his _shotim_, or sages. One of the wise men said: "O king, this infant is a Jew who will one day do great evil to your kingdom. Cause all the children of the Jews to be slain; thus shalt thou save thy empire, if, indeed, the decrees of fate can be opposed." Pharaoh was pleased with this advice. He sent for the midwives and ordered them to strangle all the male children of which the Jewesses were delivered. There was in Egypt a man named Abraham, son of Keath, husband to Jocabed, sister to his brother. This Jocabed bore him a daughter named Mary, signifying "persecuted," because the Egyptians, being descended from Ham, persecuted the Israelites, who were evidently descended from Shem. Jocabed afterwards brought forth Aaron, signifying "condemned to death," because Pharaoh had condemned all the Jewish infants to death. Aaron and Mary were preserved by the angels of the Lord, who nursed them in the fields and restored them to their parents when they had reached the period of adolescence. At length Jocabed had a third child; this was Moses, who, consequently, was fifteen years younger than his brother. He was exposed on the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter found him while bathing, had him nursed and adopted him as her son, although she was not married. Three years after, her father, Pharaoh, took a fresh wife, on which occasion he held a great feast. His wife was at his right hand, and at his left was his daughter, with little Moses. The child, in sport, took the crown and put it on his head. Balaam, the magician, the king's eunuch, then recalled his majesty's dream. "Behold," said he, "the child who is one day to do so much mischief! The spirit of God is in him. What he has just now done is a proof that he has already formed the design of dethroning you. He must instantly be put to death." This idea pleased Pharaoh much.