sir, I can't bear it; I hope you'll allow
me to leave the room a minute, if you will read it. Indeed but I won't,
answered he. Lady Jones said, Pray, good sir, don't let us hear it, if
Mrs. Andrews be so unwilling. Well, Pamela, said my master, I will put
it to your choice, whether I shall read it now, or you will sing it by
and by. That's very hard, sir, said I. It must be one, I assure you,
said he. Why then, sir, replied I, you must do as you please; for I
cannot sing it.

Well, then, said my master, I find I must read it; and yet, added he,
after all, I had as well let it alone, for it is no great reputation to
myself. O then, said Miss Darnford, pray let us hear it, to choose.

Why then, proceeded he, the case was this: Pamela, I find, when she was
in the time of her confinement, (that is, added he, when she was
taken prisoner, in order to make me one; for that is the upshot of
the matter,) in the journal she kept, which was intended for nobody's
perusal but her parents, tells them, that she was importuned, one
Sunday, by Mrs. Jewkes, to sing a psalm; but her spirits not permitting,
she declined it: But after Mrs. Jewkes was gone down, she says, she
recollected, that the cxxxviith psalm was applicable to her own case;
Mrs. Jewkes having often, on other days, in vain, besought her to sing
a song: That thereupon she turned it more to her own supposed case; and
believing Mrs. Jewkes had a design against her honour, and looking upon
her as her gaoler, she thus gives her version of this psalm. But pray,
Mr. Williams, do you read one verse of the common translation, and I
will read one of Pamela's. Then Mr. Williams, pulling out his little
pocket Common-Prayer-Book, read the first two stanzas:

I.

When we did sit in Babylon,
The rivers round about;
Then in remembrance of Sion,
The tears for grief burst out.

II.

We hang'd our harps and instruments
The willow trees upon:
For in that place, men, for that use,
Had planted many a one.

My master then read:

I.

When sad I sat in B----n-hall,
All guarded round about,
And thought of ev'ry absent friend,
The tears for grief burst out.

II.

My joys and hopes all overthrown,
My heart-strings almost broke,
Unfit my mind for melody,
Much more to bear a joke.

The ladies said, It was very pretty; and Miss Darnford,