[11]
  “How well this Hebrew name with sense doth sound,
  A fool’s my brother,[11a] though in wit profound! 
  Most wicked wits are the devil’s chiefest tools,
  Which, ever in the issue, God befools. 
  Can they compare, vile varlet, once hold true,
  Of the loyal lord, and this disloyal Jew? 
  Was e’er our English earl under disgrace,
  And, unconscionable; put out of place? 
  Hath he laid lurking in his country-house
  To plot rebellions, as one factious? 
  Thy bog-trot bloodhounds hunted have this stag,
  Yet cannot fasten their foul fangs,—­they flag. 
  Why didst not thou bring in thy evidence
  With them, to rectify the brave jury’s sense,
  And so prevent the ignoramus?—­nay,
  Thou wast cock-sure he wou’d he damned for aye,
  Without thy presence;—­thou wast then employed
  To brand him ’gainst he came to be destroyed: 
  Forehand preparing for the hangman’s axe,
  Had not the witnesses been found so lax.”

[11a] Achi, my brother, and tophel, a fool.—­Orig.  Note.

[12] Vol. ix.

[13] He was the son of Dr. John Pordage, minister of Bradfield expelled his charge for insufficiency in the year 1646.  Among other charges against him were the following, which, extraordinary as they are, he does not seem to have denied: 

“That he hath very frequent and familiar converse with angels.

“That a great dragon came into his chamber with a tail of eight yards long, four great teeth, and did spit fire at him; and that he contended with the dragon.

“That his own angel came and stood by him while he was expostulating with the dragon; and the angel came in his own shape and fashion, the same clothes, bands, and cuffs, the same bandstrings; and that his angel stood by him and upheld him.

“That Mrs. Pordage and Mrs. Flavel had their angels standing by them also, Mrs. Pordage singing sweetly, and keeping time upon her breast; and that his children saw the spirits coming into the house, and said, Look there, father; and that the spirits did after come into the chamber, and drew the curtains when they were in bed.

“That the said Mr. Pordage confessed, that a strong enchantment was upon him, and that the devil did appear to him in the shape of Everard, and in the shape of a fiery dragon; and the whole roof of the house was full of spirits.”—­State Trials.

[14] How little Dryden valued these nicknames appears from a passage in the “Vindication of the Duke of Guise:”—­“Much less am I concerned at the noble name of Bayes; that is a brat so like his own father, that he cannot be mistaken for anybody else.  They might as reasonably have called Tom Sternhold Virgil, and the resemblance would have held as well.”  Vol. vii.