nse 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.
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 co