עלוקה, from a root which signifies _to adhere_, _stick
close_, or _hang fast_, Prov. xxx, 15. A sort of worm that lives in
water, of a black or brown colour, which fattens upon the flesh, and
does not quit it till it is entirely full of blood. Solomon says, “The
horse-leech hath two daughters, Give, give.” This is so apt an emblem of
an insatiable rapacity and avarice, that it has been generally used by
different writers to express it. Thus Plautus makes one say, speaking of
the determination to get money, “I will turn myself into a horse-leech,
and suck out their blood;” and Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus,
calls the common people of Rome horse-leeches of the treasury. Solomon,
having mentioned those that devoured the property of the poor as the
worst of all the generations which he had specified, proceeds to state
the insatiable cupidity with which they prosecuted their schemes of
rapine and plunder. As the horse-leech had two daughters, cruelty and
thirst of blood, which cannot be satisfied, so the oppressor of the poor
has two dispositions, rapacity and avarice, which never say they have
enough, but continually demand additional gratifications.
close_, or _hang fast_, Prov. xxx, 15. A sort of worm that lives in
water, of a black or brown colour, which fattens upon the flesh, and
does not quit it till it is entirely full of blood. Solomon says, “The
horse-leech hath two daughters, Give, give.” This is so apt an emblem of
an insatiable rapacity and avarice, that it has been generally used by
different writers to express it. Thus Plautus makes one say, speaking of
the determination to get money, “I will turn myself into a horse-leech,
and suck out their blood;” and Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus,
calls the common people of Rome horse-leeches of the treasury. Solomon,
having mentioned those that devoured the property of the poor as the
worst of all the generations which he had specified, proceeds to state
the insatiable cupidity with which they prosecuted their schemes of
rapine and plunder. As the horse-leech had two daughters, cruelty and
thirst of blood, which cannot be satisfied, so the oppressor of the poor
has two dispositions, rapacity and avarice, which never say they have
enough, but continually demand additional gratifications.