Now (as Daniel the Natural Philosopher understood only too well) people had a habit of over-burdening explanations, and to do so was a bad habit – a kind of superstition. And yet the parallels between Syphilus the Shepherd and James the Heir to the English Throne were hard to ignore – and as if that weren't enough, Sir Roger L'Estrange had recently been leaning on Nahum Tate, asking him to perhaps find some other mildewy old Latin poems to translate. And everyone knew that L'Estrange was doing so, and understood why.