His pride
increases with his practice, and the fuller of business he is, like a
sack, the bigger he looks. He crowds to the Bar like a pig through a
hedge, and his gown is fortified with flankers about the shoulders to
guard his ears from being galled with elbows. He draws his bills more
extravagant and unconscionable than a tailor; for if you cut off
two-thirds in the beginning, middle, or end, that which is left will be
more reasonable and nearer to sense than the whole, and yet he is paid
for all; for when he draws up a business, like a captain that makes
false musters, he produces as many loose and idle words as he can
possibly come by until he has received for them, and then turns them off
and retains only those that are to the purpose. This he calls drawing of
breviates. All that appears of his studies is, in short, time converted
into waste-paper, tailor's measures, and heads for children's drums. He
appears very violent against the other side, and rails to please his
client as they do children, "Give me a blow and I'll strike him, ah,
naughty!" &c. This makes him seem very zealous for the good of his
client, and though the cause go against him he loses no credit by it,
especially if he fall foul on the counsel of the other side, which goes
for no more among them than it does with those virtuous persons that
quarrel and fight in the streets to pick the pockets of those that look
on. He hangs men's estates and fortunes on the slightest curiosities and
feeblest niceties imaginable, and undoes them like the story of breaking
a horse's back with a feather or sinking a ship with a single drop of
water, as if right and wrong were only notional and had no relation at
all to practice (which always requires more solid foundations), or
reason and truth did wholly consist in the right spelling of letters,
whenas the subtler things are the nearer they are to nothing, so the
subtler words and notions are the nearer they are to nonsense.
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