OF SELBOENE 176 



hirundines, do never leave this island at all, but partake of the 

 same benumbed state : for we cannot suppose that, after a month's 

 absence, house-martins can return from southern regions to appear 

 for one morning in November, or that house-swallows should leave 

 the districts of Africa to enjoy, in March, the transient summer 

 of a couple of days. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Dear Sir, 



Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778. 



There was in this village several years ago a miserable pauper, 

 who, from his birth, was afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are 

 aware of a singular kind, since it affected only the palms of his 

 hands and the soles of his feet. This scaly eruption usually broke 

 out twice in the year, at the spring and fall ; and, by peeling 

 away, left the skin so thin and tender that neither his hands or 

 feet were able to perform their functions ; so that the poor object 

 was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languish- 

 ing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit 

 was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged 

 on a miserable existence, a burden 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 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 particular lived to be far advanced in years. 



In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havock among man- 

 kind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted with it 

 from the most remote times ; as appears from the peculiar and 

 repeated injunctions given them in the Levitical law.^ Nor was 

 the rancour of this foul disorder much abated in the last period 

 of their commonwealth, as may be seen in many passages of the 

 New Testament. 



' See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv. 



