He is of a true philosophical temper, and
suffers what he knows not how to avoid with a more than stoical
resolution. He is one of those the poet speaks of:--
"Qui ferre incommoda vitae,
Nec jactare jugum, vita didicere magistra."
He is as much pleased to see many men approve his choice of his wife and
has as great a kindness for them, as opiniasters have for all those whom
they find to agree with themselves in judgment and approve the abilities
of their understandings.
A LITIGIOUS MAN
Goes to law as men do to bad houses, to spend his money and satisfy his
concupiscence of wrangling. He is a constant customer to the old
reverend gentlewoman Law, and believes her to be very honest, though she
picks his pockets and puts a thousand tricks and gulleries upon him. He
has a strange kindness for an action of the case, but a most passionate
loyalty for the King's writ. A well-drawn bill and answer will draw him
all the world over, and a breviate as far as the Line. He enters the
lists at Westminster like an old tiller, runs his course in law, and
breaks an oath or two instead of a lance; and if he can but unhorse the
defendant and get the sentence of the judges on his side, he marches off
in triumph. He prefers a cry of lawyers at the Bar before any pack of
the best-mouthed dogs in all the North. He has commonly once a term a
trial of skill with some other professor of the noble science of
contention at the several weapons of bill and answer, forgery, perjury,
subornation, champarty, affidavit, common barretry, maintenance, &c.
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