The corruption of a bankrupt is commonly the
generation of this creature. He dwells on the back side of the world, or
in the suburbs of society, and lives in a tenement which he is sure none
will go about to take over his head. To a man that walks abroad, he is
one of the antipodes, that goes on the top of the world, and this under
it. At his first coming in, he is a piece of new coin, all sharking old
prisoners lie sucking at his purse. An old man and he are much alike,
neither of them both go far. They are still angry and peevish, and they
sleep little. He was born at the fall of Babel, the confusion of
languages is only in his mouth. All the vacations he speaks as good
English as any man in England, but in term times he breaks out of that
hopping one-legged pace into a racking trot of issues, bills,
replications, rejoinders, demures, querelles, subpoenas, &c., able to
fright a simple country fellow, and make him believe he conjures.
Whatsoever his complexion was before, it turns in this place to choler
or deep melancholy, so that he needs every hour to take physic to loose
his body; for that, like his estate, is very foul and corrupt, and
extremely hard bound. The taking of an execution off his stomach give
him five or six stools, and leaves his body very soluble. The
withdrawing of an action is a vomit. He is no sound man, and yet an
utter barrister, nay, a sergeant of the case, will feed heartily upon
him; he is very good picking meat for a lawyer. The barber-surgeons may,
if they will, beg him for an anatomy after he hath suffered an
execution.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117