THE HORSELEACH. 193 



THE HORSELEACH. 



THE import of the Hebrew word rendered horseleach in the 

 LXX. the Vulgate, and the Targums, as well as in the English 

 and other modern versions of scripture, is by no means well ascer- 

 tained. 'The horseleach,' says Solomon, 'hath two daughters, cry- 

 ing, give, give,' Prov. xxx. 16. Bochart thinks the translators have 

 mistaken the import of one word for that of another very similar, 

 and that it should be translated Destiny, or the necessity of dying ; 

 to which the Rabbins gave two daughters, Eden or Paradise, and 

 Hades or Hell ; the first of which invites the good, the second calls 

 for the wicked. And this interpretation is thought to be strength- 

 ened by ch. xxvii. 20; 'Hell and Destruction [Hades and the 

 Grave] are never satisfied.' Paxton, on the other hand, contends 

 that the common interpretation is in every respect entitled to the 

 preference. Solomon, having in the preceding verses mentioned 

 those that devoured the property of the poor, as the worst of all the 

 generations he had specified, proceeds in the fifteenth verse, to state 

 and illustrate the insatiable cupidity with which they prosecuted 

 their schemes of rapine and plunder. As the horseleach hath two 

 daughters, cruelty and thirst of blood, which cannot be satisfied ; 

 so, the oppressor of the poor has two dispositions, cruelty and ava- 

 rice, which never say they have enough, but continually demand 

 additional gratifications. 



THE SNAIL. 



THIS creature appears in two passages of the English Bible, but 

 improperly in Lev. xi. 30, where the Hebrew doubtless means a 

 kind of lizard. The wise Author of nature having denied feet and 

 claws to enable snails to creep and climb, has made them amends, 

 in a way more commodious for their state of life, by the broad skin 

 along each side of their belly, and the undulating motion observa- 

 ble there. By the latter they creep ; by the former, assisted by the 

 glutinous slime emitted from the body," they adhere firmly and se- 

 curely to all kinds of superfices, partly by the tenacity of their 



