Penman

[T]he holy Pen-men of the Nevv Teſtament ſeem to have borrovv'd and apply'd it [the word mystery] to ſome of the Great and Arduous Truths of Chriſtianity, ſuch as human Reaſon cannot give a clear and explicit Account of.

Well, I often wish I were a penman; but I never could do it. I’ll read any day as long as you like, but that writing, I could never manage.

You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of Literature and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the state any service.

But there had been total silence. The Captain evidently was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might have been abroad.

Forgers, counterfeiters (penmen) and other such intellectuals have a certain standing in the underworld and even pickpockets are respected more or less as the masters of a difficult art, but they do not rank with the princes of the big con […]