It vvould have done your Heart good to have ſeen him charge through an Army of Lavvyers, Attornies, Clerks, and Tradeſmen; ſometimes vvith Svvord in Hand, at other Times nuzzling like an Eel in the Mud.
1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. The Second Part. Chapter VII. Of the Hard Shifts Mrs. Bull was Put to, to Preserve the Manor of Bullock’s-Hatch; with Sir Roger’s Method to Keep off Importunate Duns.”, in Miscellanies, 2nd edition, volume II, London: […] Benjamin Motte, […], page 94