Amazia,

meant for Charles II., in Pordage’s poem of Azaria and Hushai. We are told by the poet, “his father’s murtherers he destroyed;” and then he preposterously adds—

“Beloved of all, for merciful was he,

Like God, in the superlative degree.”

To say that such a selfish, promise-breaking, impious libertine was “like God, in the superlative degree,” is an outrage against even poetical licence and court flattery.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.