Note 314 — APPENDIX.

Preface to the Reader. Gratius Englished, &c. by C. Wase.

The hunting of the ancient Hebrews appears not to have differed materially from that of the Pagan world. “Canaan,” observes Wase, “was hemmed in with deserts: there was the great Lebanon, and there was Mizpeh, and Tabor, and other mountains which abounded with game; and in the royall age, I beleeve, hunting itself was much frequented; for though the sacred history do not ex professo take care to deliver us any thing concerning those lighter recreations, yet the frequent representations made by it throughout the writters of that age, do give some probability that it was a frequent object among them, and taken from the common use. David’s persecutions are sometimes likened to fowling, oftentimes to hunting: his enemies dig a pit for him, they set a snare to catch his feet. No authors of human learning, whose works yet survive, make so much mention of grins as the Psalmes have made: his enemies bend their bow, and make their arrows ready upon the string, to shoot at the righteous. This was Esau’s artillery. So that according to that age, limiting was so instituted; for our author, speaking of these two, intimates that they were courses of an elder date, for Ginns saith he,

He saith likewise for bows and arrows,

Psalm cxl. 5.

David’s enemies hide a net for him. ‘The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the way side; they have set grins for me.’ Neither was it unknown to the Jewish huntsmen the way of driving beasts, by an immission of fear, which is the formido et pinnatum,” &c. The biblical scholar will remember the memorable passage of the book of Job,Job c. xviii. “the steps of his strength shall be straitened, (Gr. hunted,) and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare. The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him (the entangling cord or noose holdeth him fast). The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.” In the prophet Isaiah almost all the methods of capture given in the Classic Cynegetica contribute their metaphorical signification.Isaiah c. xxiv. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare.” See also Jeremiah c. xlviii. and Ezekiel c. xix. the παγίδες θανάτου of the lxx. version of proverbs xxi. 1. may be compared to the “mortis laquei” of Horace, L. iii. od. xxiv. vs. 8. and to the “leti plagæ” of Statius Silv. V. i. vs. 155.