More sense than single prayers is not his; nor more in those than still
the same petitions: from which he either fears a learned faith, or
doubts God understands not at first hearing. Show him a ring, he runs
back like a bear; and hates square dealing as allied to caps. A pair of
organs blow him out of the parish, and are the only glyster-pipes to
cool him. Where the meat is best, there he confutes most, for his
arguing is but the efficacy of his eating: good bits he holds breed good
positions, and the Pope he best concludes against in plum-broth. He is
often drunk, but not as we are, temporally; nor can his sleep then cure
him, for the fumes of his ambition make his very soul reel, and that
small beer that should allay him (silence) keeps him more surfeited, and
makes his heat break out in private houses. Women and lawyers are his
best disciples; the one, next fruit, longs for forbidden doctrine, the
other to maintain forbidden titles, both which he sows amongst them.
Honest he dare not be, for that loves order; yet, if he can be brought
to ceremony and made but master of it, he is converted.
A MERE COMMON LAWYER
Is the best shadow to make a discreet one show the fairer. He is a
_materia prima_ informed by reports, actuated by statutes, and hath his
motion by the favourable intelligence of the Court. His law is always
furnished with a commission to arraign his conscience; but, upon
judgment given, he usually sets it at large. He thinks no language worth
knowing but his Barragouin: only for that point he hath been a long time
at wars with Priscian for a northern province.
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