_Φράσω γὰρ δὴ ὅσον μοι Ψυχᾷ προσφιλές ἐστιν εἰπεῖν._[1] I had no intention of quoting scripture when I began, but the words came to mind and I gave them utterance, and thou wilt not be displeased, good reader, at seeing them thus introduced.—Good reader, I have said:—if thou art not good, I would gladly persuade thee to become so;—and if thou art good, would fain assist thee in making thyself better. _Si de tout ce que je vous ai dit, un mot peut vous être utile, je n'aurai nul regret à ma peine._[2] [Footnote 1: EURIPIDES.] [Footnote 2: MAD. DE MAINTENON.] Well then benevolent and patient reader, it is here my duty to confess that there is a passage in the last chapter which I am bound to retract. For since that chapter was written I have found cause to apprehend that in vindicating Guy's daughter I have wronged Job's wife, by accrediting a received calumny founded upon a mistranslation. I did not then know, what I have now learnt, that a judicious and learned writer, modest enough to conceal his name and designate himself only as a private gentleman, had many years ago, in a Review of the History of Job, stated his reasons for regarding her as a much injured woman. Every one knows that the wife of Job in our Bible says to her husband, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!” Now this writer asserts that the Hebrew verb which our translators render in this place _to curse_, means also _to bless, to salute, or give the knee_, and that there are but four more places in all the Bible where it can be supposed to have an opposite meaning, and that even in those places it may admit of the better signification. It is not surprizing that many verbal difficulties should occur in a book, which if of later date than the books of Moses, is next to them in antiquity. Such difficulties might be expected whether we have it in its original language, or whether it were written, as many have opined, by Job himself in Syriac, Arabic or Idumean, and translated into Hebrew; much more if the opinion of Dr. Wall could be admitted, that it was written at first in hieroglyphics, against which the length of the book is a conclusive objection. “I should imagine,” says the anonymous defender, “she had so high an opinion of her husband's innocence that she might mean to advise him, seeing notwithstanding his uprightness he was thus amazingly afflicted, to go and kneel or bow down before God, and plead or as it were expostulate with him concerning the reason of these dreadful calamities,—even though he should die. If this sense of her expressions be allowed, it will justify Job's wise rebuke for her inconsiderateness, while, as he still possessed his soul in submissive patience, crying out—‘Thou speakest as a rash, thoughtless, or foolish woman: what, shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ Indeed it should seem that God himself did not