isrally called a lens; such is a burning-glass, or LE'NTOUS. adj. [lentus, Latin.] Viscous; spectacle-glass, or an object glass of a telescope. tenacious; capable to be drawn out.

Newton.

In this spawn of a lentous and transparent body, According to the difference of the lenses, I

are to be discerned many specks which become used various distances.

Newton.

black, a substance more compacted and terresLEXT. The part. pass. from lend.

trious than the other; for it riseth not in disBv Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, tillation.

Brown. And what to those we give, to Jove is lent. Popes LE'od. n. s. Leod signifies the people ; LENT. n. s. (lenten, the spring, Sax.]

1 The quadragesimal fast; a time of ab.

or, rather, a nation, country, Sc. Thus, stinence; the time from Ashwednesday

leodgar is one of great interest with the to Easter.

people or nation. Gibson's Camden. Lexi is from springing, because it falleth in the

L'of. n. s. Leof denotes love ; so leofspring; for which our progenitors, the Germans,

win is a winner of love ; leofstan, best use tai.

Camden. beloved : like these Agapetus, Erasmus, LE'NTEX, edi. (from lent.] Such as is Philo, Amandus, &c. Gibson's Camden. used in lent; sparing.

LE'onine, adj. [leoninus, Latin.] My lord, if you delight not in man, what 1. Belonging to a lion ; having the nature kter entertainment the players shall receive of a lion. from you

Sbalspeare's Hamlet.

2. Leonine verses are those of which the She quench'd her fury at the food, And with a leatsx sallad coold her blood.

end rhimes to the middle; so named Their commons, though but coarse, were no

from Leo the inventor : as thing scant. Dry. Hind and Panther. Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum. LENTICULAR. adj. (lenticulaire, Fr.] L'OPARD. n. s. [leo and pardus, Latin.] Doubly convex; of the form of a lens.

A spotted beast of prey. The crystalline humour is of a lenticular fi

Sheep run not half so tim'rous from the wolf, gure, convex on both sides. Ray on Creation.

Or horse or oxen from the leopard, LŠNTIFOR '1. adj. [lens and forma, Lat.) As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves. Shak. Having the form of a lens.

A leopard is every way, in shape and actions, LENTI GINCUS. adj. [from lentigo, Lat.) like a cat: his head, teeth, tongue, feet, claws, Scurfy; scurfuraceous.

tail, all like a cat's: he boxes with his fore-feet, LENTIGO. n. s. (Latin.) A freckly or

as a cat doth her kittens; leaps at the prey, as a

eat at a mouse; and will also spit much after the scurfy eruption upon the skin ; such

same mauner: so that they seem to differ, just especially as is cominon to women in as a kite doth from an eagle.

Grer. childbearing,

Quincy. Before the 'king tame leopards led the way, LE'NTIL. 2. s. (lens, Lat. lentille, Fr.) A

And troops of lions innocentiy play. Dryden. pani.

Le'per. n. s. [lepra, leprosus, Lat.) One khath a papilionaceous flower, the pointal of infected with a leprosy. which becomes a short pod, containing orbicular

I am no loathsome leper; look on me. Shaks. seeds, for the most part convex; the leaves are The leper in whom the plague is, his cloaths conjugated, growing to one mid-rib, and are ter- shall be rent.

Levitics. minated by tendrils.

Miller. Le'Perous. adj. [formed from leprous, The Philistines were gathered together,where

to make out a verse.] Causing leprosy ; as a piece of ground full of lentiles. 2 Sam.

infected with leprosy; leprous. LE'NTISCK. n. s. [lentiscus, Lat. lentisque, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

Fr.) Lentisck wood is of a pale brown, With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, almost whitish, resinous, fragrant, and

And in the porches of mine ears did pour acrid : it is the cree which produces

The leperous distilment. Sbaksp. Hamlet. mastich, esteemed astringent and bal. LE'PORINE. odj. [leporinus, Lat.) Belong. samick.

Hill. ing to a hare; having the nature of a Lentisek is a beautiful evergreen, the mastich hare. cr gum of which is of use for the teeth or gums. LEPROʻSITY. n. s. [from leprous.] Squa.

Mortimer's Husbandry. LE'NTITUDS. n. s. [from lentus, Litin.]

mous disease.

If the crudities, impurities, and leprosities of Sligsishness; slowness.

Dict.

metals were cured, they would become gold. LE'ST ER. 7. s. A kind of hawk.

Bacon. I should enlarge my discourse to the observa- LE'PROSY. n. s. [lepra, Lat. lepre, Fr.) A tion of the haggard, and the two sorts of lentners.

Walton's Angler.

loathsone distemper, which covers the LENTOR. 1. s. (lentor, Lat. lenteur, tr.]

body with a kind of white scales.

Itches, blains, 1. Tenacity; viscosity;

So all the Athenian bosoms, and their crop Some bodies have a kind of lentor, and more Be general leprosy: Shaksp. Timor of Athens. de eczible nature than others. Bacon. It is a plague of leprosy:

Leviticus. 2. Sowness ; delay; sluggish coldness. Between the malice of my enemies and other

Tre lestar of eruptions, not inflammatory, men's mistakes, I put as great a difference as beprut to an acid cause, Arbutbrot on Dict. tween the itch of novelty and the leprosy of dise 2.1.3 physick.] That sizy, viscid, coa

loyalty:

King Cbaries. zliet part of the biood, which, in

Authors, upon the first entrance of the pox,

looked upon it so highiy infectiois, that they ran maqat severs, obstructs the capil

away froin it as much as the Jews did from the Bary vels Quincy. beprosy:

Wisemari's Surgery

LE'PROUs, adj. [lepra, Lat. lepreux, Fr.]

Kings may give Infected with a leprosy.

To beggars, and no lessen their own greatness.

Denbant. The silly amorous sucks his death, By drawing in a leprows barlot's breath. Donne.

Though charity alone will not make one LERE. 1.s. [lære, Saxon ; leere, Dutci.)

happy in the other world, yet it shall lessen bis A lesson ; lore; doctrine. Obsolete.

punishment.

Calamy's Sermons.

Collect into one sum as great a number 13 This sense is still retained in Scotland.

you please, this multitude, how great soever, lese The kid pitying his heaviness,

sens not one jot the power of adding to it, or brings · Asked the cause of his great distress;

him any nearer the end of the inexhaustible And also who, and whence, that he were,

stock of number.

Locke. Though he that had well ycond his lere,

This thirst after fane betra;'s him into such Thus melled his talk with many a teare. Spens. indecencies as are a lessening to his reputation, LE'RRY. (from lere.) A rating; a lec- and is looked upon as a weakness in the greatest ture. Rustick word.

characters.

Spectatur. LeSs. A negative or privative termina

Nor are the pleasures which the brutal part of tion. [lear, Saxon ; loos, Dutch.]

the creation enjoy, subject to be lessened by the

uneasiness which arises from tancy. Atterbury. Joined to a substantive, it implies the

3. To degrade ; to deprive of power or absence or privation of the thing ex

dignity pressed by that substantive: as, a wit

Who seeks less man, a man without wit ; childless, To lessen thee, against his purpose serves without children ; fatherless, deprived To manifest the more thy might.

Miller, of a father ; funnyless, wanting money.

St. Paul chose to magnify his office, when ill Less. adj. [lear, Sax.] The comparative To Le'ssen. v. n.

men conspired to lessen it. Atterbury's Sermo.s. of little: opposed to greater, or to so

To grow less; to

shrink; to be diminished. great; not so much; not equal.

All government may be esteemed to grow Mary, the mother of James the less. Mark. He that thinks he has a positive idea of infi

strong or weak, as the general opinion in those

that govern is seen to lessen or increase. Temple. nite space will find, that he can no more have a

The objection lessens much, and comes to na positive idea of the greatest than he has of the

more than this, there was one witness of no icast space; for in this latter we are capable only

good reputation.

diturbury. of a comparative idea of smallness, which will

LESSER. adj. A barbarous corruption of always be less than any one whereof we have the positive idea.

Locke. less, formed by the vulgar froin the ha. All the ideas that are considered as having bit of terminating comparatives in er; parts, and are capable of lucrease by the addition afterward adopted by poets, and thical of any equal or less parts, affuid us, by their re

by writers of prose, till it has all the petition, she idea of infinity.

Locke. "Tis less to conquer, than to make wars cease,

authority which a mode originally erAnd, without tighting, awe the world to peace.

roneous can derive from custoir. Hallif.ix.

What great despite doth fortune ta thee bear, LESS. n. s. Not so much : opposed to

Thus loviy to abase thy beauty bright,

I hat it should not deface all other lesser light? more, or to as much.

Fairy Queen. They gathered some more, some less. Exod.

It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Thy servant knew nothing of this, less or more.

Women to change their shapes than men their 1 Samuel. minds

Slikspeare Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw,

The mountains, and higher parts of the earth, Though less and less of Emily he saw. Dryden. •

grow lesser and lesser from age to age : some. Less. adv. In a smaller degree ; in a times the roots of them are weakened by sublower degree.

terraneous fires, and sometimes tumbled by This opinion presents a less merry, but not

earthquakes into caverns that are under thein.

But sct. less dangerous, temptation to those in adversity.

Cain, after the murder of his brother, ciics

Decay of Piety. The less space there is betwixt us and the ob

out, Every man that findeth me shall slay me. ject, and the more pure the air is, by so much

By the same reason may a man, in the state

of nature, punish the lesser breaches of that the more the species are preserved and discin

law.

Locko. guished; and, on the contrary, the more space of air there is, and the less it is pure, so much

Any heat promotes the ascent of mineral

matter, but more especially of that which is the more the object is confused and embroiled.

Dryden.

subtle, and is consequently moveable more easıly, and with a lesser power.

Wodrcard. Their learning lay chiefly in flourish; they

The larger here, and there the lesser lain bs, were not much wiser than the less prerending multitude.

Collier on Pride.

The new-fall’n young herd blearing for their

dams. The less they themselves want from o:hers, they will be less careful to supply the necessities Le'sser. adv. [formed by corruption of the indigent.

Smulridge. from less. ] Happy, and happy still, she might have prov'd, Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate Were she less beautiful, or less belov’d. . Pope.

him, LE'SSEE. n. s.

Do call it valiant fury.
The person to whom a

Slakspeare. lease is given.

LE'SSES. n. s. (laissées, Fr.). The dung To LE'SSEN. v. a. (from less.)

of beasts left on the ground. 1. To make less; to diminish in bulk. LE'SSON. n. s. [lrçon, Fr. lectio, Lat. ) 2. To diminish the degree of any state or s. Any thing read or repeated to a teach, quality ; to make less intense.

er, in order to improvement.

Pope.

vice.

I but repeat that lesson

shore filleth the sail, and the sail carWhich I have learn'd from thee. Denbam.

rieth the boulter into the sea, which, 2. Precept; notion inculcated.

after the respite of some hours, is drawn This day's ensample hath this lessoa dear Deep written in my heart with iron pen,

in again by a cord fastened at the That bliss may not ad.de in state of mortal men. nearer end.

Carev. Fairy Qiseen. TO LET. v. a. [lætan, Saxon.] Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom, and 1. To allow; to suffer; to permit. teach her not an evil lesson against thyself.

Nay, nay, quoth he, let be your strife and Ecclesiasticus. doubt.

Fairfax. 3. Portions of scripture read in divine Where there is a certainty and an uncertainservice.

ty, let the uncertainty go, and hold to that which Notwithstanding so eminent properties, where

is certain.

Bishop Sanderson. of lessons are happily destitute; yet lessons being

On the crowd he cast a furious look, free from some inconveniencies whereunto ser

And wither'd all their strength before he spoke; mons are most subject, they may, in this re

Back on your lives, let be, said he, my prey, spect, no less take, than in other they must give And let my vengeance take the destina way: the band which betokeneth pre-eminence.

Dryden. Hooker. Remember me; speak, Raymond, will you le 4. Tune pricked for an instrument.

him? Those good laws were like good lessons set for

Shall he remember Leonora ? Drydere · fute out of tune; of which lessons little use

We must not let go manifest truths, because can be made, till the flute be made fit to be we cannot answer all questions about them. played on. Davies.

Collier.

One who fixes his thoughts intently on one s. A rating lecture. She would give her a lesson for walking so late,

thing, so as to take but little notice of the suc

cession of ideas in his mind, lets slip out of his that should make her keep within doors for one fortnight.

Locke. Sidney.

account a good part of that duration.

A solution of mercury in aqua fortis being 1. LE'SSON. v. a. (from the noun.] TO

poured upon iron, copper, tin, or lead, dissolves teach; to instruct.

the metal, and lets go the mercury. Newton, Even in kind love, I do conjure thee 2. A sign of the optative inood used be. To lesa me.

Sbakspeare. fore the first, and imperative before the Well hast thou lesson'd us, this shall we do.

Shakopeare.

third person. Before the first person Children should be seasoned betimes, and leso singular it signifies resolution, fixed soned into a contempt and detestation of this purpose, or ardent wish.

L'Estrange.

Let me die with the Philistines. Judges. LE'SSOR. n. S. One who lets any thing

Here let me sit, to farm, or otherwise, hy lease.

And hold high converse with the mighty dead. Lords of the world have but for life their lease,

Thomson. And that too, if the lessor please, must cease.

3. Before the first person plural, let im.

Denbam. plies exhortation. If he demises the glebe to a layman, the te- Rise; let us go.

Mark, park must pay the small tithes to the vicar, and Let us seek out some desolate shade. Sbaksp.

the great tithes to the lessor. Ayliffe's Parergon. 4. Betore the third person, singular or LEST. conj. (from the adjective least. plural, let implies permission. 1. This particle may sometimes be re- Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause. Milt.

solved into tbat not, meaning prevention 5. Or precept, or care lest a thing should happen.

Let the soldiers seize him for one of the asPorty stripes he may give him, and not er

sassinates.

Dryden. ceed, lest if he should exceed, then thy brother 6. Sometimes it implies concession. should seem sile.

Deuteronomy.

O’er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow,
Lest they faint

Or trees weep amber on the banks of Po,
At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd,

While by our oaks the precious loads are born, Al cerror hide.

Milton. And realms commanded which those trees adorn. My labour will sustain me, and lest cold.

Pope. Or heat should injure us, his timely care 7. Before a thing in the passive voice, let , Hah unbesought provided.

Milton.

implies command. King Luitprand brought hither the corps, lest

Let not the objects which ought to be contiit might be abused by the barbarous nations.

guous be separated, and let those which ought to Addison.

be separated be apparently so to us; but let this 2. It sometimes means only that, with a be done by a small and pleasing difference. kind of emphasis.

Dryden One doubt

8. Let has an infinitive mood after it withPursues me still, lest all I cannot die, Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man,

out the particle to, as in the former Which God inspir’d, cannot together perish

examples. With this corporeal clod.

Milton. But one submissive word which you let fall, LE'STERCOCK. n.s. They have a device

Will make him in good humour with us all.

Dryden. of two sticks filled with corks, and

The seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie crossed flatlong, out of whose midst still.

Exodus. there riseth a thread, and at the same 9. To leave: in this sense it is commonly tangeth a sail; to this engine, termed a

followed by alone. kestercock, they tie one end of their boula

They did me too much injury, ter, so as the wind coming from the That ever said I bacarkeu'd for your death. VOL. III,

E

a

If it were so, I might have let alone

Hippocrates let great quantities of blood, and Th'insulting hand of Douglas over you. Shaks. opened several veins at a time. Arbutbrot.

The public outrages of a destroying tyranny 15. To LET biood, is used with a dative of are but childish appetites, let alone till they are

the person whose blood is let. grown ungovernable. L'Estrange's Fables.

As terebration doth meliorate fruits, so doth Let me alone to accuse him afterwards. Dryd.

tetting plants blood, as pricking vines, thereby This is of no use, and had been better let

letting forth tears.

Bacon. alone : he is fain to resolve all into present pose 16. To Let in. To admit. session.

Locke, Nestor, do not let us alone till you have

Let in your king, whose labour'd spirits shortened our necks, and reduced them to their

Crave harbourage within your city walls. Sbaks. antient standard.

Addison.

Roscetes presented his army before the gates This notion might be let alone and despised, as

of the city, in hopes that the citizens would raise some tumult, and let him in.

Knolles. a piece of harmless unintelligible enthusiasm.

What boots it at one gate to make defence,
Rogers.

And at another to let in the foe, 10. To more than permit; to give.

Effeminately vanquish'd ? Milton's Agonistes. There's a letter for you, Sir, if your name be The more tender our spirits are made by reHoratio, as I am let to know it is. Sbaksp.

ligion, the more easy we are to let in grief, if the 11. To put to hire ; to grant to a tenant. cause be innocent.

Taylor. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon; he They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, let the vineyard unto keepers. Canticles. True to his sense, but truer to his fame,

Nothing deadens so much the composition of Fording his current, where thou find'st it low, a picture, as figures which appertain not to the Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow. subject: we may call them figures to be let.

Denbar. Dryden. To give a period to my life, and to his fears She let her second floor to a very genteel man. you're welcome; here's a throat, a heart, or any

Tatler. other part, ready to let in death, and receive his A law was enacted, prohibiting all bishops, and commands.

Denban. other ecclesiastical corporationis, from letting 17. If a noun follows, for let in, let into their lands for above the term of twenty years. is required.

Swift.

It is the key that lets them into their very 12. To suffer any thing to take a course heart, and enables them to command all that is which requires no impulsive violence. there.

Soutb's Sermons. In this sense it is commonly joined There are pictures of such as have been dise with a particle.

tinguished by their birth or miracles, with inShe let them down by a cord through the

scriptions, that let you into the name and history window.

Joshua.
of the person represented.

Addison Launch out into the deep, and let down your

Most historians have spoken of ill success, nets for a draught.

Luke.

and terrible events, as if they had been let into Let down thy pitcher, that I may drink. Gen.

the secrets of Providence, and made acquainted The beginning of strife is as when one lettetb

with that private conduct by which the world is

Proverbs. out water.

governed.

Addison. As terebration doth meliorate fruit, so doth

These are not mysteries for ordinary readers pricking vines or trees after they be of some

to be let into.

Addison. growth, and thereby letting forth gum or tears.

As we rode through the town, I was let ints Bacon.

the characters of all the inhabitants; one was a And if I knew which way to do't,

dog, another a whelp, and another a cur. siddis. Your honour safe, I'd let you out, Hudibras. 1S. TO LET in, or into. To procure ad.

The letting out our love to mutable objects mission, doth but enlarge our hearts, and make them the They should speak properly and correctly, wider marks for fortune to be wounded. Boyle. whereby they may lct their thoughts into other My heart sinks in me while I hear him speak, men's minds the more easily.

Locke. And every slacken'd fibre drops its hold;

As soon as they have hewn down any quantity Like nature letting down the springs of life. of the rocks, they let in their springs and reserDryden. voirs among their works.

Addison, From this point of the story, the poet is let 19. TO LET off. To discharge. Origidown to his traduional poverty. Pope's Essay on Homer.

nally used of an arrow dismissed from You may let it down, that is, make it softer by

the gripe, and therefore suffered to fly tempering it. Moxon's Mechanical Exercises.

off the string: now applied to guns.

Charging my pistol with powder, I cautioned 13. To perinit to take any state or course. Finding an ease in not understanding, he let

the emperor not to be afraid, and then let it of

in the air. loose his thoughts wholly to pleasure.

Swist. Sidney. Let reason teach impossibility in any thing,

20. To Let out. To lease out; to give to and the will of man doth let it go. Hooker.

hire or farm. He was let loose among the woods as soon as

TO LET. v. a. [lettan, Saxon.) he was able to ride on horseback or carry a gun.

1. To hinder; to obstruct; to oppose.

Spectator. Their senses are not letted from enjoying 14. To Let blood, is elliptical for to let out

their objects: we have the impediments of hoe

nour, and the torments of conscience. blood. To free it from confinement; To glorify him in all things, is to do nothing to suffer it to stream out of the vein. whereby the name of God may be blasphemed Be ruld by me;

nothing whereby the salvation of Jew or Gres Let's purge this choler without letting blood. cian, or any in the church of Christ, may be led

Skakspeare.

or hindered. His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries Leave, ah, leave off, whatever wight thou be, To-morrow are les blocd in Pomfret e je.

To let a weary wretch from her due rcst, Sakspeare, And trouble dying soul's tranquillity! Feira Q.

a

Sidrey.

Hooker.

2

Wherefore do ye let the people from their Has seiz'd his powers towards public cares and works? go you unto your burdens. Exodus.

dangers, The mystery of iniquity doth already work; He sleeps like death. Denbam's Sophy; only he who now letteb will let, until he be Europe lay then under a deep lethargy; and taken out of the way.

2 Tbessalonians. was no otherwise to be rescued from it, but by I will work, and who will let it? Isaiah. one that would cry mightily. Atterbury: And now no longer letted of his prey,

A lethargy is a lighter sort of apoplexy, and He leaps up at it with enrag'd desire,

demands the same cure and diet. Arbuthnot. O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey, LE'The. n. s. [aágn. ] Oblivion ; a draught And nods at every house his threatening fire. of oblivion.

Dryden. The conquering wine hath steept our'sense 1. To LET, wben it signifies to permit or In soft and delicate letbe.

Sbakspears. leave, has let in the preterit and part. Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls passive; but when it signifies to binder, His wat’ry labyrinth, which whoso drinks it has letted; as, multa me impedierunt, Lerrer. n. s. (from let.]

Forgets both joy and grief.

Milton. many things bave letted me.

1. One who lets or permits. Introduction to Grammar.

2. One who hinders. T. LET. V. n. To forbear; to withhold

3. One who gives vent to any thing; as, himself.

a blood letter. After king Ferdinando had taken upon him the person of a fraternal ally to the king, he LETTER. n. š. [lettre, French ; litera, would not let to counsel the king. Bacon.

Latin.) LET. 7.5. [from the verb.) Hinderance; 1. One of the elements of syllables ; obstacle ; obstruction; impediment. character in the alphabet.

The secret lets and difficulties in public pro- A stiperscription was written over him in leta ceedings are innumerable and inevitable. Hooker, Gers of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Luke.

Salman without let presented his army before Thou whoreson Zed! thou unnecessary letthe city of Belgrade. Knolles' Hist. of the Turks.

ter!

Sbakspeare. It had been done ere this, had I been consul; A written message ; an epistle. We had had no stop, no let.

Ben Jonson.

They use to write it on the top of letters. Just judge, two lets remove; that free from

Sbakspeare. dread,

I have a letter for her I may before thy high tribunal plead. Sandys. Of such contents as you will wonder at. Shaksp.

To these internal dispositions to sin, add the When a Spaniard would write a letter by him, external opportunities and occasions concurring the Indian would marvel how it should be poswith them, and removing all lets and rubs out sible, that he, to whom he came, should be able of tbe way, and making the path of destruction to know all things.

Abbot. plain before the sinner's face; so that he may 'The asses will do very well for trumpeters, roo his course freely.

South. and the hares will make excellent letter carriers. LIT, the termination of diminutive

L'Estrange: words from lyte, Saxon, little, small; The stile of letters ought to be free, easy, and as, rivulet, a small stream ; bamlet, a

natural; as near approaching to familiar converhttle village.

sation as possible: the two best qualities in con

versation are, good humour and good breeding; LETRA'RGICK. adj. [lethargique, French,

those letters are therefore certainly the best that frem lethargy.] Sleepy by disease, be- shew the most of these two qualities. Walsh. Fond the natural power of sleep.

Mrs. P. B. has writ to me, and is one of the Vengeance is as if minutely proclaimed in

best letter writers I know; very good sense, ciunder from heaven, to give men no rest in vility, and friendship, without any stiffness or siris, till they awake from the lethargick constraint.

Swift. sleep, and arise from so dead, so mortiferous a 3. The verbal expression; the literal

Hammend. meaning
Let me but try if I can wake his pity,
From his lethargick sleep.

Derban's Sophy.

Touching translations of holy scripture, we

may not disallow of their painful travels herein, A lethargy deinands the same cure and 'diet who strictly have tied themselves to the very as an apoplexy from a phlegmatic case, such be- original letter.

Hooker. mg the constitution of the lethargick. Arbuthnot. In obedience to human laws, we must observe LITHÁÍRGICKNESS, n. s. (from lethar. the letter of the law, without doing violence to

gick.] Morbid sleepiness; drowsiness the reason of the law, and the intention of the to a disease.

lawgiver.

Taylor.

Those words of his must be understood not A guin of glory mixt wish bumbleness, Cures buch a fever, and lethargickness. Herbert.

according to the bare rigour of the letter, but LE'THARGIED. adj. (from lethargy.]

according to the allowances of expression.

South's Sermone. Lid asleep ; entranced.

What! since the pretor did my fetters loose, His moinn weakens, or bis discernings And left me freely at my own dispose, Are labor.

Sbaksp. King Lear.

May I not live without controul and awe, LE'THARGY. 7. s. [Ano agzice; lethar. Excepting still the letter of the law?

gie, French.) A morbid drowsiness ; 4. Letiers without the singular : learning, a sleep from which one cannot be kept The Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth awake.

this man letters, having never learned? John. The letbergs must have his quiet course; 5. Any thing to be read. nor, he foams at mouth, and by and by

Good laws are at best but a dead letter. Addis. Breaks out to savage madness. Sbaksp. 6. Type with which books are printed.

Though his eye is open, as the morning's, The iron ladles that letter founders use to the Towards lusts and pleasures; yet so fast a low casting of printing letters, are kept constantly in sbaros

melting metale

Moxon,

Dryden.