386 SNAKE in A HORSE’s EYE 
not plead ignorance and unbelief. He profeffes, for his 
own part, to be as little credulous or liable to impofitions, 
from accounts of pretended miraculous appearances, as his 
neighbours, however learned. Indeed he has ever ftrenu- 
oufly oppofed, and thinks he ever fhall, what he deems 
empty tales of vifionary fpeculatifts, bred by weak fancies, 
or raifed by defigning men, to amufe or deceive the vulgar; 
but he admires and reveres the unfearchable wifdom of the 
divine archite&t, who framed this fpacious univerfe, teeming 
with myriads of animal beings, as well in thofe inftances 
where his defign and footfteps are vifible, as in thofe which 
lay more remote from human comprehenfion. Upon the 
firft relation of this curious hiftory from others, unacquaint- 
ed with the ftructure of the eye, and therefore more likely 
to pafs a wrong judgment; and, till he had an opportu- 
nity to examine it himfelf, he believed the appearance to 
be fome unufual difeafe, or a filimentary production on 
the cryftalline humour, from a ftroke or inflammation of 
the eye, and that a convulfion in the nerves of its coat 
might produce an irritation in that organ, and a tremulous 
motion, which might impofe upon thofe who, not know- 
ing how to account for the appearance, fhould content 
themfelves with calling it a fnake in the eye, merely from 
its refemblance, on firft fight, to that animal. But from 
the clofeft ocular examination, with unwearied attention, 
repeated more than once, he conceives he is not miftaken, 
in afferting that there is a real fnake in the eye; which, 
from the vivacity and brifknefs of its motion, exceeds that 
of any worm, and equals that of any kind of ferpent he 
has ever feen. 
To fatisfy the public in general, as well thofe who have 
now an opportunity of feeing it, as fuch who may happen 
never to fee it, I think it will not be amifs to defcribe its 
appearance, and to deliver what J have been able to col 
Je&t of its hiftory. 
The 
