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 &c. introducing foreign coin is not so heavy an offence as clipping the King's English is, which he has done most unmercifully. If the word which presented itself did not rhyme, he made it, and wrote passe for past, narre for near, emisse for emitted, conject for conjecture, &c. and it is sometimes past the reach of conjecture to find out his meaning, In the midst of a very fine passage he calls Fear or Doubt 'a sturdy rascal,' and Alexander the Great is designated as 'that pert Pellæan lad.' Idee is generally used for idea, a word which had not then been made trite by fashionable metaphysics.

A curious passage occurs against materialism.


 * Or nerves, or brains, or body modifide,
 * Whence it will follow that cold-stopping crud.
 * Hard moldy cheese, dry nuts, when they have rid
 * Due circuits though the heart, at last shall speed
 * Of life and sense: look thorough our thin eyes