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.,
and though he come off with the worst, he does not greatlv care so he
can but have another bout for it. He fights with bags of money as they
did heretofore with sand-bags, and he that has the heaviest has the
advantage and knocks down the other, right or wrong and he suffers the
penalties of the law for having no more money to show in the case. He is
a client by his order and votary of the long robe, and though he were
sure the devil invented it to hide his cloven feet, he has the greater
reverence for it; for, as evil manners produce good laws, the worse the
inventor was the better the thing may be. He keeps as many Knights of
the Post to swear for him, as the King does poor knights at Windsor to
pray for him. When he is defendant and like to be worsted in a suit, he
puts in a cross bill and becomes plaintiff; for the plainant is eldest
hand, and has not only that advantage, but is understood to be the
better friend to the Court, and is considered for it accordingly.

A HUMOURIST

Is a peculiar fantastic that has a wonderful natural affection to some
particular kind of folly, to which he applies himself and in time
becomes eminent. 'Tis commonly some outlying whimsy of Bedlam, that,
being tame and unhurtful, is suffered to go at liberty. The more serious
he is the more ridiculous he becomes, and at the same time pleases
himself in earnest and others in jest. He knows no mean, for that is
inconsistent with all humour, which is never found but in some extreme
or other. Whatsoever he takes to he is very full of, and believes every
man else to be so too, as if his own taste were the same in every man's
palate. If he be a virtuoso, he applies himself with so much earnestness
to what he undertakes that he puts his reason out of joint and strains
his judgment; and there is hardly anything in the world so slight or
serious that some one or other has not squandered away his brain