I am a dray-horse if I was not ashamed of the indigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blessed Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffed brain with such rubbish.

Dryden spent more pains than was usual with him on the composition of this essay, though he speaks modestly of it as 'rude and indigested,' and it is indeed the most elaborate of his critical disquisitions.

My Lord, As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, amongst the rest I found this Essay, the writing of which, in this rude and indigested manner wherein your Lordship now sees it, served as an amusement to me in the country

"Neu brevier quinto, neu sit productior actu: "So that you see, the Grecians cannot be said to have consumated this Art: writing rather by Entrances than by Acts; and having rather a general indigested notion of a Play, than knowing how and where to bestow the particular graces of it.

His the true fire, When they like Glo-worms, being touch'd, expire, 'Twas first beleev'd, because he alwayes was, The Ipse dixit, and Pythagoras To our Disciple-wits; His soule might run (By the same-dream't-of Transmigration) Into their rude and indigested braine, And so informe their Chaos-lump againe; For many specious brats of this last age Spoke FLETCHER perfectly in every Page.

The unknown writer might have taken as his motto a passage in the dedication of Ovid's Banquet of Sense: "Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical and childish; but where it shroudeth itself in the heart of his subject, uttered with fitness of figure and expressive epithets, with that darkness will I still labour to be shrouded."

I am a drayhorse if I was not asham'd of the indigested dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blest Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffd brain with such rubbish.

and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deserved no better?

All dreams, as in old Galen I have read, 140 Are from repletion and complexion bred; From rising fumes of indigested food, And noxious humours that infect the blood:

C. B. Sleep, therefore, as the chief of all earthly blessings, is justly appropriated to induustry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury; it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquillity.

An opinion has of late been, I know not how, propagated among us, that libraries are filled only with useless lumber; that men of parts stand in need of no assistance; and that to spend life in poring upon books, is only to imbibe prejudices, to obstruct and embarrass the powers of nature, to cultivate memory at the expense of judgment, and to bury reason under a chaos of indigested learning.

[Footnote 12: References to Tindal's book, and remarks upon it, which the author left thus indigested, being hints for himself to use in answering the said book.]