unts of them with uncommon concern. But, when my first terrours
began to subside, I soon recollected that these creatures, having both
wings and feet, would scarcely have been called serpents; and was
quickly convinced, by their leaving the country, without doing any hurt,
that they had no quality, but the colour, in common with the ravagers
here described.

As I am not able to determine any thing on this question, I shall
content myself with collecting, into one view, the several properties of
this pestiferous brood, with which we are threatened, as hints to more
sagacious and fortunate readers, who, when they shall find any red
animal, that ranges uncontrouled over the country, and devours the
labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it
corruption, rapine, pollution, and devastation; that threatens without
courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour, they may
know that the prediction is completed. Let me only remark further, that
if the style of this, as of all other predictions, is figurative, the
serpent, a wretched animal that crawls upon the earth, is a proper
emblem of low views, self-interest, and base submission, as well as of
cruelty, mischief, and malevolence.

I cannot forbear to observe, in this place, that, as it is of no
advantage to mankind to be forewarned of inevitable and insurmountable
misfortunes, the author, probably, intended to hint to his countrymen
the proper remedies for the evils he describes. In this calamity, on
which he dwells longest, and which he seems to deplore with the deepest
sorrow, he points out one circumstance, which may be of great use to
disperse our apprehensions, and awaken us from that panick which the
reader must necessarily feel, at the first transient view of this
dreadful description. These serpents, says the original, are "haud
pugnaces," of no fighting race; they will threaten, indeed, and hiss,
and terrify the weak, and timorous, and thoughtless, but have no real
courage or strength. So that the mischief done by them, their ravages,
devastations, and robberies, must be only the consequences of cowardice
in the sufferers, who are harassed and oppressed, only because they
suffer it without resistance. We are, therefore, to remember, whenever
the pest, here threatened, shall invade us, that submission and tameness
will be certain ruin, and that nothing but spirit, vigilance, activity,
and opposition, can preserve us from the most hatefu