SELBORNE. 21 



hands nor feet were able to perform their 

 functions ; so that the poor object was half 

 his time on crutches, incapable of employ, 

 and languishing in a tiresome state of indo- 

 lence and inactivity. His habit was lean, 

 lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight 

 he dragged on a miserable existence, a bur- 

 den to himself and his parish, which was 

 obliged to support him till he was relieved 

 by death at more than thirty years of age. 



The good women, who love to account 

 for every defect in children by the doctrine 

 of longing, said that his mother felt a vio- 

 lent propensity for oysters, which she was 

 unable to gratify ; and that the black rough 

 scurf on his hands and feet were the shells 

 of that fish. We knew his parents, neither 

 of which were lepers ; his father in parti- 

 cular lived to be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful 

 havock among mankind. The Israelites 

 seem to have been greatly afflicted with it 

 from the most remote times ; as appears 

 from the peculiar and repeated injunctions 



