GRASS AND HERBS. 233 



A similar gradation of poetical imagery is used in 2 Kings xix. 

 26, ' Their inhabitants were of shortened hand ; dismayed, ashamed, 

 they were as grass of the field, vegetables in general, as the green 

 buddings of grass; as the tender risings on the house tops; and 

 those, too, struck by the wind, before it is advanced in growth to a 

 rising up.' What a climax of imbecility ! 



Is it not unhappy, that in the only two places of the Old Testa- 

 ment where our translators have used the word hay, it should be 

 necessary to substitute a word of a directly contrary meaning, in 

 order to accommodate the true rendering of the passages to the na- 

 tive (eastern) ideas of their authors? 



20* 



