who place it to account, and draw it back again upon him; and though it be false, neither cheats the other, for it passes between both for good and sufficient pay.  If he drives an inland trade, he is factor to certain remote country virtuosos, who, finding themselves unsatisfied with the brevity of the Gazette, desire to have exceedings of news besides their ordinary commons.  To furnish those, he frequents clubs and coffee-houses, the markets of news, where he engrosses all he can light upon; and if that do not prove sufficient, he is forced to add a lie or two of his own making, which does him double service; for it does not only supply his occasions for the present, but furnishes him with matter to fill up gaps in the next letter with retracting what he wrote before, and in the meantime has served for as good news as the best; and when the novelty is over it is no matter what becomes of it, for he is better paid for it than if it were true.

A QUIBBLER

Is a juggler of words, that shows tricks with them, to make them appear what they were not meant for and serve two senses at once, like one that plays on two Jew’s trumps.  He is a fencer of language, that falsifies his blow and hits where he did not aim.  He has a foolish sleight of wit that catches at words only and lets the sense go, like the young thief in the farce that took a purse, but gave the owner his money back again.  He is so well versed in all cases of quibble, that he knows when there will be a blot upon a word as soon as it is out.  He packs his quibbles like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he will be sure to have it.  He dances on a rope of sand, does the somersault, strappado, and half-strappado with words, plays at all manner of games with clinches, carwickets, and quibbles, and talks under-leg.  His wit is left-handed, and therefore what others mean for right he apprehends quite contrary.  All his conceptions are produced by equivocal generation, which makes them justly esteemed but maggots.  He rings the changes upon words, and is so expert that he can tell at first sight how many variations any number of words will bear.  He talks with a trillo, and gives his words a double relish.  He had rather have them bear two senses in vain and impertinently than one to the purpose, and never speaks without a leer-sense.  He talks nothing but equivocation and mental reservation, and mightily affects to give a word a double stroke, like a tennis-ball against two walls at one blow, to defeat the expectation of his antagonist.  He commonly slurs every fourth or fifth word, and seldom fails to throw doublets.  There are two sorts of quibbling, the one with words and the other with sense, like the rhetorician’s figurae dictionis et figurae sententiae—­the first is already cried down, and the other as yet prevails, and is the only elegance of our modern poets, which easy judges call easiness; but having nothing in it but easiness, and being never used by any lasting wit, will in wiser times fall to nothing of itself.