But alas! Sir, _Ætas parentum pejor avis_; we live in the fag-end of a most degenerate ungrateful age, that has no regard to _Greek_ or _Latin_. _Oh tempora & mores!_ was the complaint of a great virtuoso two thousand years ago, which we have but too much reason to renew now. Oh, _Aristotle, Aristotle_! that I should ever live to see thy venerable name in so much contempt, that any one belonging to _Westminster-hall_, should have the impudence to say, he will not trust thee for a groat! _Ultra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet._ I dare swear, that even in _Muscovy_ and _Poland_, none of the most hospitable countries in the world, thou mayst at any time take a good dinner and a gallon of brandy upon thy _Entilechia_ and _Actus perspecui_, and yet in _Westminster-Hall_, the most enlighten’d hall of the most enlighten’d city of _Christendom_, thy _ipse dixit_ in so much vogue formerly with the _Thomists_ and _Scotists_, the _Nominalists_ and _Realists_, should not pass for a groat! So much, _Sir_, by way of answer, to _Aristotle_ and _Westminster-Hall_, _ipse dixit_, and a groat. What you say in a following paragraph concerning the wicked _Moabite_ and the _Stone Doublet_, is very picquant and ingenious: for, Sir, reading Mr. _Hobbs_’s chapter about _Concatenation of Thought_, I find there is a great connection between the _Moabite_ and _Stone doublet_; and some of the modern itineraries inform us, that stone doublets are in mighty request with the people of those countries to this very day; and the physical reason they assign for it, is, because stone doublets are very refrigerating and alexpharmick, which undoubtedly is a great refreshment in so hot a climate, as that where the wicked _Moabite_ lived. But, _Sir_, in lieu of the advice, which, out of your great bounty and liberality, you were pleas’d to give me for nothing, be pleas’d to accept of the following character, which I give myself the trouble to transcribe out of an ancient MS. in the _Cotton-Library_, suppos’d to be written by the famous _Junius_, who for his great skill in the oriental languages, acquir’d the sirname of _Patricius_; and this character, unless I am mistaken in my mathematicks, will give you a lively idea of a certain beast you may perhaps be acquainted with.