Quarles, History of Samson, sect. 19.
A σεμνοπρέπεια in his person, a grave and a smiling garb compounded together to bring strangers into a liking of their welcome.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 32.
Horace’s wit and Virgil’s state
He did not steal but emulate,
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear.
Denham, On the Death of Cowley.
Garble. Writings only are ‘garbled’ now; and ‘garbled’ extracts are extracts dishonestly made, so shifted, mutilated, or in other ways tampered with, that, while presented as fair specimens, they convey a false impression. It is not difficult to trace the downward progress of the word. It is derived from the Low Latin ‘garbellare,’ to sift or cleanse corn from any dust or rubbish which may have become mingled with it. It was then applied to any separation of the good from the bad, retaining that, rejecting this, and used most commonly of spices; then generally to picking and choosing, but without any intention to select the better and to dismiss the worse: and lastly, as at present, to picking and choosing with the distinct purpose of selecting that which should convey the worse impression, and dismissing that which should have conveyed a truer and a better. It is a very favourite word in its earlier uses with Fuller.
Garbling of bow-staves (anno 1 R. 3, cap. 11) is the sorting or culling out of the good from the bad.—Cowell, The Interpreter, s.v.
There was a fair hospital, built to the honour of St. Anthony in Bennet’s Fink, in this city; the protectors and proctors whereof claimed a privilege to themselves, to garble the live pigs in the markets of the city; and such as they found starved or otherwise unwholesome for man’s sustenance they would slit in the ear, tie a bell about their necks, and turn them loose about the city.—Fuller, Worthies of England: London.