OF SELBORNE. 2L 



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- 

 then 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 violent 

 propensity for oysters, which she was un- 

 able 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 



