He
overruns Latin and French with greater barbarism than the Goths did
Italy and France, and makes as mad a confusion of language by mixing
both with English. Nor does he use English much better, for he clogs it
so with words that the sense becomes as thick as puddle, and is utterly
lost to those that have not the trick of skipping over where it is
impertinent. He has but one termination for all Latin words, and that's
a dash. He is very just to the first syllables of words, but always
bobtails the last, in which the sense most of all consists, like a cheat
that does a man all right at the first that he may put a trick upon him
in the end. He is an apprentice to the law without a master, is his own
pupil, and has no tutor but himself, that is a fool. He will screw and
wrest law as unmercifully as a tumbler does his body to lick up money
with his tongue. He is a Swiss that professes mercenary arms, will fight
for him that gives him best pay, and, like an Italian bravo, will fall
foul on any man's reputation that he receives a retaining fee against.
If he could but maintain his opinions as well as they do him, he were a
very just and righteous man; but when he has made his most of it, he
leaves it, like his client, to shift for itself. He fetches money out of
his throat like a juggler; and as the rabble in the country value
gentlemen by their housekeeping and their eating, so is he supposed to
have so much law as he has kept commons, and the abler to deal with
clients by how much the more he has devoured of Inns-of-Court mutton;
and it matters not whether he keep his study so he has but kept commons.
Pages:
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512