Note 268 — PART THE SECOND.

Moses had an impediment in his speech, which was occasioned by the following accident. Pharaoh one day carrying him in his arms when a child, he suddenly laid hold of his beard and plucked it in a very rough manner, which put Pharaoh into such a passion that he ordered him to be put to death: but Ásiyeh his wife representing to him that he was but a child, who could not distinguish between a burning coal and a ruby, he ordered the experiment to be made; and a live coal and a ruby being set before Moses, he took the coal and put it into his mouth, and burnt his tongue: and thereupon he was pardoned.—This is a Jewish story a little altered.—S.