Epithetise

"If I thought our very worthy chairman would smile on having a tragedy put into his hands by one who paid much attention to so dry, heavy — or how shall we epithetise it? — a subject or science as statistics or political economy, surely I cannot expect less from our very worthy croupier, on having a comedy, forsooth, put into his hands by the same student of the dry or heavy, but that he should laugh fairly and broadly out."