breathed the prayer which is in the Koran, and the legend proceeds as in the other version, except that nothing is said concerning the manner in which he was discharged of his vow, the vow itself being annulled when Rasima's innocence was made known. The Koran where it touches upon this legend, says, it was said to Job, “take a handful of rods in thy hand, and strike thy wife therewith, and break not thine oath.” Sale observes upon this that as the text does not express what this handful of rods was to be, some commentators have supposed it to be dry grass, and others rushes, and others (as in the legend) a palm branch. But the elder Wesley takes the words in their direct and rigorous meaning, and says that as the Devil had no small part in the Koran, this passage indubitably bears his stamp, for who but the Devil would instigate any one to beat his wife? This erudite commentator, (he deserves to be so called,) vindicates the Matriarch in one of his Dissertations, and says that in the speech for which Job reproved her she only advised him to pray for death: in the mouth of a Greek or Roman matron it might have been understood as an exhortation to suicide;—_Hæc ore Græcæ aut Romanæ mulieris prolata ut heroica quædam exhortatio esset suspecta._ His favourable opinion is entitled to more weight, because it was formed when he made the book of Job his particular study, whereas in an earlier work, the History of the Bible in verse, he had followed the common error, and made Satan as the last and worst of Job's torments play his wife against him, saying that the fiercest shock which the Patriarch sustained was from the tempest raised by her tongue. The expositors who comment upon this text of the Koran without reference to the legend, have differed in opinion as to the offence which Job's wife had committed thus to provoke her husband, some asserting that he swore to punish her with stripes because she had stayed too long on an errand,—an opinion by no means consistent with his patience. Returning to the main argument I conclude, that if upon the meaning of the doubtful word in the Hebrew text authorities are so equipoised as to leave it doubtful, these traditions being of Arabian growth have sufficient weight to turn the scale; even if it were not a maxim that in cases of this kind the most charitable opinion ought to be preferred. And as Dr. Southey has classed this injured Matriarch in a triad with Xantippe and Mrs. Wesley, I cannot but hope that the candid and learned Laureate, who as I before observed, has condescended to clear the character of some Irish cast-off cavalry horses, will, when he has perused this chapter, render the same justice to Job's wife; and in the next edition of his Life of Wesley, substitute Hooker's in her place. CHAPTER CXVIII. POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND DISSIMILITUDE BETWEEN SIR THOMAS BROWN AND DOCTOR DOVE.