Doth my father yet live— There is great beauty in this interrogation: it is highly expressive of anxious affection; and the transition is finely wrought: I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? Is the pleasing intelligence still which you have before given me? Mr. Pope, in a note on Homer's Odyssey, b. xvi. v. 490. observes. observes, "That the discovery of Ulysses to Telemachus, has some resemblance with that of Joseph's discovery of himself to his brethren; and it may not be disagreeable," says he, "to see how two such authors describe the same passion. I am JOSEPH, I am your brother JOSEPH."
"I am ULYSSES; I, my son! am he! And wept aloud; and he fell on his brother's neck, and wept. He wept abundant, and he wept aloud."
"But it must be owned, that Homer falls infinitely short of Moses. He must be a very wicked man, who can read the history of Joseph without the keenest touches of compassion, and transport. There is a majestic simplicity in the whole relation, and such an affecting portrait of human nature, that it overwhelms us with vicissitudes of joy and sorrow. This is a pregnant instance, how much the best of heathen writers is inferior to the Divine historian upon a parallel subject, where the two authors endeavour to move the softer passions." But, above all, the one account is true, and the other feigned.