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LAW, LAWYERS-continued.

He that with injury is griev'd,
And goes to law to be reliev'd,
Is sillier than a sottish chouse,
Who, when a thief has robb'd his house,
Applies himself to cunning men
To help him to his goods again.

But lawyers are too wise a nation

T expose their trade to disputation,
Or make the busy rabble judges
Of all their secret piques and grudges;

In which, whoever wins the day,

Butler, Hudibras.

The whole profession's sure to pay. Butler, Hud. II. 3, 483.

Law's the wisdom of all ages,

And manag'd by the ablest sages,

Who, tho' their bus'ness at the bar

Be but a kind of civil war,

In which th' engage with fiercer dudgeons,
Than e'er the Grecians did, and Trojans;

Butler, Hud. 3, 111. 439.

They never manage the contest
T' impair their public interest,
Or by their controversies lessen
The dignity of their profession.
Lawyers, of whose art the basis
Is raising feuds and splitting cases.
Is not the winding up witnesses,
And nicking, more than half the bus'ness?
For witnesses, like watches, go

Just as they're set, too fast or slow;
And where in conscience they're strait-lac'd,

'Tis ten to one that side is cast.

The mighty Julius pleading at the bar,

Butler.

Butler, 2, 11. 359.

Was greater than when thundering in the war,

He conquer'd nations: 'tis of more renown

To save a client than to storm a town.

Lansdowne, Beauty and Law.

I know you lawyers can, with ease,
Twist words and meanings as you please:
That language, by your skill made pliant,

Will bend to favour every client;

That 'tis the fee directs the sense,

To make out either side's pretence.

Gay, Fable, part 1. 2.

312

LAW, LAWYERS-LEARNING.

LAW, LAWYERS-continued.

There take, (says Justice,) take ye each a shell,

We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:

'Twas a fat oyster-live in peace-adieu. Pope, (fr. Boileau).

These

Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord, and perplexing right;
An iron-race!

Thomson, Autumn, 1289.

There was on both sides much to say:
He'd hear the cause another day ;-
And so he did and then a third

He heard it then, and kept his word,
But with rejoinders or replies,

Long bills, and answers stuff'd with lies,

For sixteen years the cause was spun,

And then stood where it first begun.

Dean Swift.

Goldsmith, The Traveller, 386.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair,

Honesty shines with great advantage there. Cowper, Hope, 401:

He saw a lawyer killing a viper

On a dunghill hard by his own stable;

And the Devil smil'd, for it put him in mind

Of Cain and his brother Abel.

Coleridge, Devil's Walk, 1v,

Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,

Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.

Lines quoted in Latin by Sir Edward Coke.

Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Sir W. Jones, Ode in Imitation of Alcaus.

Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.

No man e'er felt the halter draw,

With good opinion of the law. Trumbull, McFingal, III. 489.

Mastering the lawless science of our law,

That codeless myriad of precedent,

That wilderness of single instances,

Through which a few by art or fortune led

May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame.

LEADERS.

Tennyson, Aylmer's Field.

That odd impulse, which, in wars and creeds,

Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads.
LEARNING-see Argument, Authors, Education, Knowledge.
"The thrice three Muses, mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary,"-
That is some satire, keen and critical.

Byron,

Sh. Mid. N. v. L.

LEARNING.

318

LEARNING-continued.

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music;
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Familiar as his garter.

Learning is an addition beyond

Nobility of birth: honour of blood,
Without the ornament of knowledge, is
A glorious ignorance.
Learning, that cobweb of the brain,
Profane, erroneous, and vain;
A trade of knowledge, as replete
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t'incumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit.
To master John the English maid
A horn-book gives of gingerbread;
And, that the child may learn the better,
As he can name, he eats the letter.

Proceeding thus with vast delight,

Sh. Hen. V. 1. 1.

J. Shirley.

Butler, 1. 111. 1339.

He spells and gnaws from left to right.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies.

Prior, Alma, 2.

Pope.

Churchill, Rosciad, 591.

Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull.

Voracious learning, often over-fed,
Digests not into sense her motley meal.
This book-case, with dark booty almost burst,

This forager on other's wisdom, leaves

Her native farm, her reason, quite untill'd. Young, N. T. v.

Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat; it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while speculation shines.

Wits are a despicable race of men,

Young, N. T.

If they confine their talents to the pen;
When the man shocks us, while the writer shines,
Our scorn in life, our envy in his lines,
Yet, proud of parts, with prudence some dispense,

And play the fool because they're men of sense.

Young, Epistle to Mr. Pope, II.

How empty learning, and how vain is art,

But as it mends the life, and guides the heart!

Young, Last Day, 11.

314

LEARNING-LETTERS, LETTER-WRITING.

LEARNING-continued.

Learning itself, received into a mind
By nature weak, or viciously inclined,
Serves but to lead philosophers astray,
Where children would with ease discern the way.

Au reste, (as we say,) the young lad's well enough,

Cowper

Only talks much of Athens, Rome, virtue, and stuff.

Moore, Fudge Family.

Learning unrefin'd,

That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind. Falconer, Shipwreck.

LEGITIMACY.

Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;

Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him:

That marry wives.

Sh. K. John, 1. 1.

And if she did play false, the fault was her's;
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

LELY, (Sir Peter).

Lely on animated canvas stole

The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul. Pope, Aug. 1. 149.

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Sh. M. of Ven. III. 2.

Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words

That ever blotted paper!

Read o'er this:

And after, this; and then to breakfast, with
What appetite you have.

Let us see

Sh. Hen. VIII. III. 2.

'Leave, gentle wax; and manners, blame us not; To know our enemies' minds, we'd rip their hearts; Their papers is more lawful.

Sh. Lear, Iv. 6.

LETTERS, LETTER-WRITING-LIBERTY

315

Butler, Hud.

LETTERS, LETTER-WRITING-continued.
Full oft have letters caus'd the writers
To curse the day they were inditers.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid ;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart-
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Letters admit not of a half-renown;

Pope, Eloisa, 50.

They give you nothing, or they give a crown.
No work e'er gained true fame, or ever can,

But what did honour to the name of man. Young, Epis. to

I've only room for-your's sincerely.

Good bye-my paper's out so nearly,

[Pope, 202.

T. Moore, Fudge Family in Paris, 6.

He that's liberal

LIBERALITY.

To all alike, may do a good by chance,

But never out of judgment.

LIBERTINE.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

His addiction was to courses vain;

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;

His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports;

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity.

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A show of liberty,

Sh. Hen. v. 1. 1.

Sh. As Y. L. 11. 7.

When we have lost the substance, is best kept,

By seeming not to understand those faults,
Which we want power to mend.

May, Cleopatra.

In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side; This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content, though blind-had I no better guide.

Milton, to C. Skinner.

License they mean when they cry liberty. Milton, Sonnet, 12.

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