spectacles, but behind, like the head of a cat. The eyes are fiel and full of fire; the head is small, and the nose flat, though co ered with very large scales, of a yellowish ash color; the skin white, and the large tumor on the neck is flat, and covered w oblong smooth scales. The bite of this animal is said to be incu ble, the patient dying in about an hour after the wound; the who frame being dissolved into one putrid mass of corruption. T effects here attributed to the bite of this creature answer very w to what is intimated of the tzephoni in scripture. Thus, in Isai xi. 9: They [the tzephoni immediately preceding] shall not hu nor destroy [corrupt] in all my holy mountain. And Prover xxiii. 32: At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth [spread diffuses its poison; So the LXX. and Vulgate,] like a cockatric We must not omit to notice the very powerful argument adduce in the last cited passage against the sin of immoderate drinkin Like the poison of the deadly cockatrice, it paralyses the energi both of mind and body, and speedily diffuses corruption through out the entire frame. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? wh hath contentions? who hath babblings? who hath wounds withou cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at th wine: they that go to seck mixed wine.' Wine is a mocker, stron drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise ch. xxiii. 29, 30; xx. 1,

The unyielding cruelty of the Chaldean armies, under Nebuchad nezzar, and the appointed ministers of Jehovah's vengeance on th Jewish nation, whose iniquities had made him their enemy, is ex pressively alluded to in the following passage: For, behold, I wil send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which shall not be charmed and they shall bite you, saith the Lord,' Jeremiah viii. 17.

In Egypt, and other Oriental countries, a serpent was the com mon symbol of a powerful monarch; it was embroidered on their robes, and blazoned on their diadem, to siguify their absolute pow er and invincible might; and also, that, as the wound inflicted by the basilisk is incurable, so the fatal effects of their displeasure were neither to be avoided nor endured. These, says Paxton, are the allusions involved in the address of the prophet, to the irreconcileable enemies of his nation: Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of Him that smote thee is broken; for out of the serpent's roots shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent,' Isaiah xiv. 29. Uzziah, the king of Judah, had subdued the Philistines; but, taking advantage of the weak reign of Ahab, they again invaded the kingdom of Judea, and reduced some cities in the southern part of the country under their dominion. On the death of Ahab, Isaiah delivers this prophecy, threatening them with a more severe chastisement from the hand of Hezekiah, the grandson of Josiah, by whose victorious arms they had been reduced to sue for peace, which he accomplished, when 'he smote the Philistines, eyen unto Gaza, and the borders thereof,' 2 Kings xviii. 8. Uzziah, therefore, must be meant by the rod that smote

THE SERAPH, OR FIERY SERPENT.

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them, and by the serpent from whom should spring the fiery flying serpent, that is, Hezekiah, a much more terrible enemy than even Uzziah had been, But the symbol of regal power which the Oriental kings preferred to all others, was the basilisk.

All the other species of serpents are said to acknowledge the superiority of the basilisk, by flying from its presence, and hiding themselves in the dust. It is also supposed to live longer than any other serpent: the ancient heathens, therefore, pronounced it to be immortal, and placed it in the number of their deties; and because it had the dangerous power, in general belief, of killing with its pestiferous breath the strongest animals, it seemned to them invested with the power of life and death. It became, therefore, the favorite symbol of kings, and was employed by the prophet to symbolize the great and good Hezekiah, with strict propriety.

THE SERAPH, OR FIERY SERPENT.

THIS species of serpent receives its name, seraph, from a root which signifies to burn, either from its vivid fiery color, or from the heat and burning pain occasioned by its bite. In Numb. xxi. 6, &c. we read that these venomous creatures were employed by God to chastise the unbelieving and rebellious Israelites, in consequence of which many of them died, the rest being saved from the effects of the calamitous visitation, through the appointed medium of the brazen seraph, which Moses was enjoined to raise upon a pole in the midst of the camp, and which was a striking type of the promised Saviour, John iii. 14, 15.

In Isa. xiv. 29, and ch. xxx, 6, the same word, with an additional epithet is used, and is translated in our Bible, fiery flying serpents;' and if we may rely upon the testimony of the ancients, a cloud of witnesses may be produced, who speak of these flying or winged serpents; although, as Parkhurst remarks, we do not find that any of them affirm they actually saw such alive and flying. Michaëlis, however, was so far influenced by these testimonies, that in his 83d question he recommends it to the travellers to inquire after the existence and nature of flying serpents, In conformity with these instructions, Niebuhr communicated the following information: There is at Bâsna, a sort of serpents which they call Heie sursurie Heie thiâre. They commonly keep upon the datetrees; and, as it would be laborious for them to come down from a very high tree in order to ascend another, they twist themselves by the tail to a branch of the former, which making a spring by the motion they give it, throw themselves to the branches of the second. Hence it is that the modern Arabs call them flying serpents, Heie

6

thiâre. I know not whether the ancient Arabs, of whom Mr. Michaelis speaks in his 83d question, saw any other flying serpents.' Niebuhr refers also to Lord Anson's report of flying serpents in the island of Quibo. The passage is as follows: "The Spaniards, too, informed us, that there was often found in the woods, a most mischievous serpent, called the flying snake, which, they said, darted itself from the boughs of trees on either man or beast that came within its reach, and whose sting they believed to be inevitable death. But professor Paxton has proposed an interpretation of the original phrase, which the text will equally bear. The verb ouph, he remarks, sometimes means to sparkle, to emit coruscations of light. In this sense the noun thopah, frequently occurs in the sacred volume. Thus, Zophar (Job xi. 17) says: The coruscation (thopah) shall be as the morning.' The word in the texts under consideration, may therefore refer to the ruddy color of that serpent, and express the sparkling of the blazing sunbeam upon its scales, which are extremely brilliant. It seems therefore probable, that the seraph was not the hydrus or chersydrus, as Bochart_supposes, but of the præster or dipsas kind.

THIS word, which frequently occurs in the English Bible, generally answers to the Hebrew Tan, and Tannin, though these words are sometimes rendered serpents, sea-monsters, and whales. The Rev. James Hurdis, in A Dissertation upon the true meaning of the word tanninim,' contends, that in its various it invariably signifies the crocodile ; an opinion which cannot be supported by authentic facts, or a legitimate mode of reasoning. The learned editor of Calmet, who argues at great length for restraining the word to amphibious animals, is of opinion that it includes the class of lizards, from the water-newt to the crocodile, and also the seal, the manati, the morse, &c. His arguments are certainly ingenious and deserv ing of attention; but they have failed to convince us of the legitimacy of his deductions. The subject is involved in much obscurity, from the apparent latitude with which the word is employed by the sacred writers. In Exod. vii. 9, et seq., Deut. xxxii. 33, and Jer. li. 34, it seems to denote a large serpent, or the dragon, properly so called; in Gen. i. 21, Job vii. 12, and Ezek. xxix, 3, a crocodile, or any large sea animal; and in Lam. iv, 3, and Job xxx. 29, some kind of wild beast, probably the jackal or wolf, as the Arabic teenan denotes. It is to the dragon, properly so called, that we shall now direct our attention.

Three kinds of dragons were formerly distinguished in India. 1. Those of the hills and mountains. 2. Those of the valleys and caves. 3. Those of the fens and marshes. The first is the largest, and covered with scales as resplendent as burnished gold. They

have a kind of beard hanging from their lower jaw; their aspect is frightful, their cry loud and shrill, their crest bright yellow, and they have a protuberance on their heads, of the color of a burning coal. 2. Those of the flat country are of a silver color, and frequent rivers, to which the former never come. 3. Those of the marshes are black, slow, and have no crest. Their bite is not venomous, though the creatures are dreadful.

The following description of the Boa is chiefly abstracted and translated from DE LA CEPEDE, by Mr. Taylor, who considers it to be the proper dragon.

The BOA is among serpents, what the lion or the elephant is among quadrupeds. He usually reaches twenty feet in length; and to this species we must refer those described by travellers, as lengthened to forty or fifty feet, as related by Owen. Kircher mentions a serpent forty palms in length; and such a serpent is referred to by Job Ludolph, as extant in Ethiopia. Jerom, in his life of Hilarion, denominates such a serpent, draco, a dragon; saying, that they were called boas, because they could swallow (boves) beeves and waste whole provinces. Bosman says, 'entire men have fre quently been found in the gullets of serpents, on the gold coast but, the longest serpent I have read of, is that mentioned by Livy and by Pliny, which opposed the Roman army under Regulus, a the river Bagrada, in Africa. It devoured several of the soldiers and so hard were its scales, that they resisted darts and spears: at length it was, as it were, besieged, and the military engines were employed against it, as against a fortified city. It was a hundred and twenty feet in length.'

At Batavia a serpent was taken which had swallowed an entire stag of a large size; and one taken at Bunda had, in like manner, swallowed a negro woman. Leguat, in his travels, says, there are serpents fifty feet long in the island of Java. At Batavia they still keep the skin of one, which, though but twenty feet in length, is said to have swallowed a young maid whole. From this account of the Boa, Mr. Taylor thinks it probable that John had it in his mind, when he describes a persecuting power under the symbol of a great red dragon. The dragon of antiquity was a serpent of prodigious size, and its most conspicuous color was red; and the apocalyptic dragon strikes vehemently with his tail; in all which particulars it perfectly agrees with the boa.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,' Rev. xii. 3, 4; 15 -17. The number of heads here given to this creature, are certainly allegorical; as are also the ten horns, and the ten crowns which are attached to them. But in all these instances, says Paxton, it is presumed that the inspired writer alludes either to historical facts or natural appearances. It is well known, that there is a species of snake, called amphisbenæ, or double-headed, although