Note 759 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.
Reading edition
rules pranked in reason’s garb, i.e. specious arguments. Pranked = decked in a showy manner: Milton (Prose works, i. 147, ed. 1698) speaks of the Episcopal church service pranking herself in the weeds of the Popish mass. Comp. Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 10, “Most goddess-like prank’d up”; Par. Lost, ii. 226, “Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb.”