But they have no absolute power to signify anything, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of letters.    From Wordnik.com.  [Essays and Miscellanies] Reference

"This," -- according to that respectable authority, "seems to imply the reality of the business, those ascititious particles which he held together in his sensible shape being loosened at the vanishing, and so offending the nostrils by their floating and diffusing themselves in the open air.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft] Reference