Construing [verb]

Can any of your readers tell me whence comes the following Sotadic Elegiac poem, and construe it for me?

I would not appear to dictate, but do you not fear Mr. Purcell may construe your non-attendance into disrespect to himself?

Read over the Ovid to Jefferson, and construe about ten lines more.

After dinner construe Ovid (100 lines); finish second book of Spenser, and read two cantos of the third.

Some refer to Minerva, and construe the passage with reference to the Panathenaic celebration.

Will not those who have the power to construe,493 and carry out their construction, so construe it?

She was an imposing looking spinster, with a curious expression on her features which was difficult to construe.

There is the dramatic story, and no one can construe it into approval of any form of imprisonment for debt.

Now—but only now—can I construe rightly the words my uncle uttered on his deathbed, which spoke of wrong he had done me and you.

There can be no doubt that he could construe Pindar—none that he could have understood him—had he tried to do so.