He never ends a suit, but prunes it that it may grow the faster and
yield a greater increase of strife. The wisdom of the law is to admit of
all the petty, mean, real injustices in the world, to avoid imaginary
possible great ones that may perhaps fall out. His client finds the
Scripture fulfilled in him, that it is better to part with a coat too
than go to law for a cloak; for, as the best laws are made of the worst
manners, even so are the best lawyers of the worst men. He hums about
Westminster Hall, and returns home with his pockets like a bee with his
thighs laden; and that which Horace says of an ant, _Ore trahit
quodcunque potest, atque addit acervo_, is true of him, for he gathers
all his heap with the labour of his mouth rather than his brain and
hands. He values himself, as a carman does his horse, by the money he
gets, and looks down upon all that gain less as scoundrels. The law is
like that double-formed, ill-begotten monster that was kept in an
intricate labyrinth and fed with men's flesh, for it devours all that
come within the mazes of it and have not a clue to find the way out
again. He has as little kindness for the Statute Law as Catholics have
for the Scripture, but adores the Common Law as they do tradition, and
both for the very same reason; for the Statute Law being certain,
written and designed to reform and prevent corruptions and abuses in the
affairs of the world (as the Scriptures are in matters of religion), he
finds it many times a great obstruction to the advantage and profit of
his practice; whereas the Common Law, being unwritten, or written in an
unknown language which very few understand but himself, is the more
pliable and easy to serve all his purposes, being utterly exposed to
what interpretation and construction his interest and occasions shall at
any time incline him to give it; and differs only from arbitrary power
in this, that the one gives no account of itself at all, and the other
such a one as is perhaps worse than none, that is implicit and not to be
understood, or subject to what constructions he pleases to put
upon it:--
Great critics in a _noverint universi_
Know all men by these presents how to curse ye;
Pedants of said and foresaid, and both Frenches,
Pedlars, and pokie, may those rev'rend benches
Y' aspire to be the stocks, and may ye be
No more call'd to the Bar, but pillory;
Thither in triumph may ye backward ride
To have your ears most justly crucified,
And cut so close until there be not leather
Enough to stick a pen in left of either;
Then will your consciences, your ears, and wit
Be like indentures tripartite cut fit.
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