up. In vain he flies from her; she was too passionate to waste even the
moments of his astonishment." This good father, however, does ample
justice to the gallantry of the Patriarch Jacob. He offers to serve
Laban, seven years for Rachel. "Nothing is too much," cries the
venerable novelist, "when one really loves;" and this admirable
observation he confirms by the facility with which the obliging Rachel
allows Leah for one night to her husband! In this manner the patriarchs
are made to speak in the tone of the tenderest lovers; Judith is a
Parisian coquette, Holofernes is rude as a German baron; and their
dialogues are tedious with all the reciprocal politesse of metaphysical
French lovers! Moses in the desert, it was observed, is precisely as
pedantic as Père Berruyer addressing his class at the university. One
cannot but smile at the following expressions:--"By the easy manner in
which God performed miracles, one might easily perceive they cost no
effort." When he has narrated an "Adventure of the Patriarchs," he
proceeds, "After such an extraordinary, or curious, or interesting
adventure," &c. This good father had caught the language of the beau
monde, but with such perfect simplicity that, in employing it on sacred
history, he was not aware of the ludicrous style in which he was
writing.

A Gothic bishop translated the Scriptures into the Goth language, but
omitted the _Books of Kings_! lest the _wars_, of which so much is there
recorded, should increase their inclination to fighting, already too
prevalent. Jortin notices this castrated copy of the Bible in his
Remarks on Ecclesiastical History.

As the Bible, in many parts, consists merely of historical transactions,
and as too many exhibit a detail of offensive ones, it has often
occurred to the fathers of families, as well as to the popes, to