mselves the
conquerors, and both lay claim to the credit of coming off with victory.
These fooleries make sport for wise men, as being highly absurd,
ridiculous and extravagant True, but yet these paper-combatants, by my
assistance, are so flushed with a conceit of their own greatness, that
they prefer the solving of a syllogism before the sacking of Carthage;
and upon the defeat of a poor objection carry themselves more triumphant
than the most victorious Scipio.

[Illustration: 250]

Nay, even the learned and more judicious, that have wit enough to laugh
at the other's folly, are very much beholden to my goodness; which
(except ingratitude have drowned their ingenuity), they must be ready
upon all occasions to confess. Among these I suppose the lawyers will
shuffle in for precedence, and they of all men have the greatest conceit
of their own abilities. They will argue as confidently as if they
spoke gospel instead of law; they will cite you six hundred several
precedents, though not one of them come near to the case in hand; they
will muster up the authority of judgments, deeds, glosses, and reports,
and tumble over so many musty records, that they make their employ,
though in itself easy, the greatest slavery imaginable; always
accounting that the best plea which they have took most pains for.

[Illustration: 254]

[Illustration: 257]

To these, as bearing great resemblance to them, may be added logicians
and sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot; who shall
run down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise of
a belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple; and if their
unappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of some
excuse; but they are at the same time so fierce and quarrelsome, that
they will wrangle bloodily for the least trifle, and be so over intent
and eager, that they many times lose their game in the chase and fright
away that truth they are hunting for. Yet self-conceit makes these
nimble disputants such doughty champions, that armed with three or four
close-linked syllogisms, they shall enter the lists with the greatest
masters of reason, and not question the foiling of them in an
irresistible way, nay, their obstinacy makes them so confident of their
being in the right, that all the arguments in the world shall never
convince them to the contrary.

Next to these come the philosophers in their long beards and short
cloaks, who