_Paring the Nails, &c._ (Vol. v., pp. 142. &c.).--
"Now no superfluity of our food, or in general no excrementitious
substance, is looked upon by them (the Egyptian priests) as pure
and clean; such, however, are all kinds of wool and down, our hair
and our nails. It would be the highest absurdity therefore for
those who, whilst they are in a course of purification, are at so
much pains to take off the hair from every part of their own
bodies, at the same time to cloath themselves with that of other
animals. So when we are told by Hesiod 'not to pare our nails,
whilst we are present at the festivals of the Gods,' we ought so
to understand him as if he designed hereby to inculcate that
purity with which we ought to come prepared, before we enter upon
any religious duty, that we have not to make ourselves clean,
whilst we ought to be occupied in attending to the solemnity
itself."--Plutarch's Treatise of _Isis and Osiris_, translated by
Squire, p. 5. 1744.
This note will show the great antiquity of these nail-paring and
hair-cutting superstitions. What is there does not come from Egypt?