This done, he comes to the end of the table, and having made a submissive leg [made a submissive bow] and a little admired [gazed at] the number, and understanding countenances of his auditors:  let the subject be what it will, he falls presently into a most lamentable complaint of his insufficiency and tenuity [slenderness] that he, poor thing! “hath no acquaintance with above a Muse and a half!” and “that he never drank above six quarts of Helicon!” and you “have put him here upon such a task” (perhaps the business is only, Which is the nobler creature, a Flea or a Louse?) “that would much better fit some old soaker at Parnassus, than his sipping unexperienced bibbership.”  Alas, poor child! he is “sorry, at the very soul! that he has no better speech! and wonders in his heart, that you will lose so much time as to hear him! for he has neither squibs nor fireworks, stars nor glories!  The cursed carrier lost his best Book of Phrases; and the malicious mice and rats eat up all his Pearls and Golden Sentences.”

Then he tickles over, a little, the skirts of the business.  By and by, for similitude from the Sun and Moon, or if they be not at leisure, from “the grey-eyed Morn,” or “a shady grove,” or “a purling stream.”

This done, he tells you that “Barnaby Bright would be much too short, for him to tell you all that he could say”:  and so, “fearing he should break the thread of your patience,” he concludes.

Now it seems, Sir, very probable, that if lads did but first of all, determine in English what they intended to say in Latin; they would, of themselves, soon discern the triflingness of such Apologies, the pitifulness of their Matter, and the impertinency of their Tales and Fancies:  and would (according to their subject, age, and parts) offer that which would be much more manly, and towards tolerable sense.

And if I may tell you, Sir, what I really think, most of that ridiculousness, of those phantastical phrases, harsh and sometimes blasphemous metaphors, abundantly foppish similitudes, childish and empty transitions, and the like, so commonly uttered out of pulpits, and so fatally redounding to the discredit of the Clergy, may, in a great measure, be charged upon the want of that, which we have here so much contended for.

The second Inquiry that may be made is this:  Whether or not Punning, Quibbling, and that which they call Joquing [joking], and such delicacies of Wit, highly admired in some Academic Exercises, might not be very conveniently omitted?

For one may desire but to know this one thing:  In what Profession shall that sort of Wit prove of advantage?  As for Law, where nothing but the most reaching subtility and the closest arguing is allowed of; it is not to be imagined that blending now and then a piece of a dry verse, and wreathing here and there an odd Latin Saying into a dismal jingle, should give Title to an estate, or clear out an obscure evidence!  And as little serviceable can it be to Physic, which is made up of severe Reason and well tried Experiments!