An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…

Canst thou make him afraid as the Grass-hopper?

The Chaldee, with whom one of the Rabbins joins, rendereth, Canst thou cause him to make a noise like a Grass-hopper. ¹Vehement motion causeth a sound or noise in the air. When many grass-hoppers fly together, they make a kind of rushing noise. This exposition agrees well enough with the word, which at second hand signifieth to make a noise, that being caused by motion. Yet other considerations hinder from resting in this interpretation. For seeing the whole discourse here, insists upon the description of a generous horse and his qualifications, the noise or sound which a Horse makes in running, makes nothing to that purpose; for as much as it is common to all Horses, even the basest ⟨p. 435⟩sort of them, to make a sound with their feet when they run. And if it should be granted that great and generous horses have somewhat peculiar in this, and make a greater sound than common horses in running, yet to take the comparison from the sound which Grass-hoppers make in flying, doth easily refute this exposition. We know indeed, what Pliny saith, Grass-hoppers make such a sound with their wings in flying, ²that they may be thought some other kind of fowls: Yet we cannot therefore believe, that it is a proper similitude, to compare the sound which horses make in running (who, as Poets use to phrase it, make the earth tremble and groan) with that crassing noise which Grass-hoppers make while they fly in the air. For if the comparison may at all be taken from flying-fowls, great fowls were much fitter for it, who use to fly in flocks together; Yet these greater fowls make no very great noise in flying, much less can Grass-hoppers. And therefore the Poets, both Greek and Latin, though they affect to shadow great sounds and clamours, by a similitude taken from flying-fowls, yet they do not take the resemblance from the sound which their flying makes with their wings, but from the sound or chattering which they make with their bills while they fly;