[O]ur linguist having received such extraordinary rudiments towards a good education, was afterwards trained up in every thing that becomes a gentleman; wearing off by little and little all the vicious habits and practices that he had been used to in the course of his peregrinations.

[…] they are produced in great abundance, with the twin objects of inducing electors to abstain, and of bemerding candidates of all parties.

to suffocate fire

I arrived to find a tennis foursome - architect & his wife, you & my mother, racquetting through a country english afternoon just as it's been bonged since Shakespeare penned his pages.