But whither am I running?  I never know where to end, when I get upon ‘learned topics.’  And albeit I cannot compliment ‘you’ with the ’name of a learned man,’ yet are you ‘a sensible man’; and (’as such’) must have ‘pleasure’ in ‘learned men,’ and in ‘their writings.’

In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my ‘kind respects’ to the good ladies, (your ‘spouse’ and ‘sister,’) and in hopes, for the ’young lady’s sake,’ soon to follow this long, long epistle, in ‘person,’ I conclude myself,

Your loving and faithful friend,
Elias Brand.

You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the ’lines drawn
      under many of the words and sentences,’ (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
      ‘different character.’  Now, you must know, Sir, that ’we learned
      men’ do this to point out to the readers, who are not ‘so learned,’
      where the ‘jet of our arguments lieth,’ and the ‘emphasis’ they are
      to lay upon ‘those words’; whereby they will take in readily our
      ‘sense’ and ‘cogency.’  Some ‘pragmatical’ people have said, that
      an author who doth a ‘great deal of this,’ either calleth his
      readers ‘fools,’ or tacitly condemneth ‘his own style,’ as
      supposing his meaning would be ‘dark’ without it, or that all of
      his ‘force’ lay in ‘words.’  But all of those with whom I have
      conversed in a learned way, ‘think as I think.’  And to give a very
      ‘pretty,’ though ‘familiar illustration,’ I have considered a page
      distinguished by ‘different characters,’ as a ‘verdant field’
      overspread with ‘butter-flowers’ and ‘daisies,’ and other
      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to ’enamelling’—­have you
      not read in the poets of ‘enamelled meads,’ and so forth?

LETTER LXVI

Mr. Brand, to John Harlowe, Esq. 
Sat.  Night, Sept. 2.

WORTHY SIR,

I am under no ‘small concern,’ that I should (unhappily) be the ‘occasion’ (I am sure I ‘intended’ nothing like it) of ’widening differences’ by ‘light misreport,’ when it is the ‘duty’ of one of ’my function’ (and no less consisting with my ‘inclination’) to ‘heal’ and ‘reconcile.’

I have received two letter to set me ‘right’:  one from a ’particular acquaintance,’ (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford’s character); and that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your ‘unhappy niece’ was greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told ‘him’ of it, and that with very ‘great concern,’ I am sure, apprehending it to be ‘true.’) So I ‘then’ set about writing to you, to ‘acknowledge’ the ‘error.’  And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter