ily strength is any ways impaired. Moreover, what they
say of the flowers of the almond tree, does not seem to agree with the
things they mean by them: for they are not, strictly speaking, white,
but of a purplish cast. Thus far concerning the senses: let us proceed
to the remaining part.

[81] _Lib. xvi. Sec.. 42._

The scrotal rupture is a disease common to persons far advanced in
years; whether it be formed by the intestine or omentum slipping down
into the scrotum, or proceed from a humor distending that part. In
either case the part is tumefied. This pernicious disease the Preacher
thought proper to compare to a grasshopper. _The grasshopper_, says
he, _shall be a burthen, Oneri erit locusta_. For thus the Hebrew
phrase is more literally translated, than by _convenient cicadae, the
cicadae shall come together_, as the learned Castalio has rendered it.
Indeed the Vulgate version has _impinguabitur locusta_, _the
grasshopper shall be fatted_. The Septuagint [Greek: Pachynthe e
achris]. _The grasshopper shall be fatted._ The Arabic version, turned
into Latin, _pinguescet locusta_, _The grasshopper shall grow fat_.
But our English translation, _The grasshopper shall be a burden_. It
is well known, that the Hebrew language is always modest, and that the
sacred Writers, in expressing such things as belong to the genital
members, abstain from indecent and obscene words, for fear of
offending chaste ears, and therefore borrow similitudes from any other
things at discretion. Which is particularly observable in the
_Canticum Canticorum_, or _Solomon_'s _Song_, written by our Author.
Now the grasshopper, or locust, is an odd-shaped animal, made up
chiefly of belly; and therefore, especially when full of eggs, may be
said to bear some resemblance to a scrotum, swoln by a rupture.

These parts being thus affected, the wise author adds, _the appetite
shall be lost_; wherein he does not attend so much to the appetite for
victuals, as for those other things, which are sought after in the
vigor of life. For as the author of _the Art of Love_ has rightly
said: _Turpe senilis amor_[82].

[82] _Ovid. Amorum, lib. i. Eclog. ix. ver. 4._

That old people are crushed to death by so great a heap of evils and
infirmities, and _depart to their eternal habitation_, to the grief
of their friends, can be no matter of wonder. But in the remaining
part of the discourse we are admonished, that their miseries in this
life are not con