in his tragedy “Sir Walter Raleigh,” thus describes Coke and the crown lawyers in the memorable trial of the hero who gave the title to the play :—
“I heard the deep-mouth'd Pack, that scented Blood
From their first starting, and pursued their View
With the Law Musick of long-winded Calumny.
Well I remember one among the Tribe,
A reading Cut-throat skill'd in Parallels,
And dark Comparisons of wond'rous Likeness,
Who, in a Speech of unchew'd Eloquence,
Muster'd up all the Crimes since Noah's Days,
To put in Ballance with this fancied Plot,
And made e'en Catiline a Saint to Raleigh:
The Sycophant so much o'er-play'd his part,
I could have hugg'd him, kiss'd the unskillful Lies
Hot from his venal Tongue."
in his lines on "Lord Keeper Egerton," has the following, which reminds us of a passage in Montaigne :
"Since her interpretations, and our deeds,
Unto a like infinity arise,
As b'ing a science that by nature breeds
Contention, strife, and ambiguities;
For altercation controversy feeds,
And in her agitation multiplies:
The field of cavil lying all like wide,
Yields like advantage unto either side.
Which made the grave Castilian king devise
A prohibition that no advocate
Should be convey'd to th' Indian Colonies,
Lest their new settling, shaken with debate,
Might take but slender root, and so not rise
To any perfect growth of fine estate;
For having not this skill how to contend,
Th' unnourish'd strife would quickly make an end.”
in "Mustapha," thus speaks of law :
“Laws the next pillars be with which we deal,
As sophistries of ev'ry common weal;
Or rather nets, which people do ask leave
That they to catch their freedoms in, may weave;
And still add more unto the sultan's pow'r,
By making their own frames themselves devour.
These Lesbian rules, with show of real grounds,
Giving right, narrow; will, transcendant bounds."
in "Match me in London," observes, —
"You oft call Parliaments, and there enact
Laws good and wholesome, such as whoso break
Are hung by the purse or neck. But as the weak
And smaller flies i' the spider's web are ta'en,
When great ones tear the web and free remain;
So may that moral tale of you be told
Which once the wolf related: in the fold
The shepherds kill'd a sheep, and eat him there;
The wolf look'd in, and see’ng them at such cheer,
Alas! quoth he, should I touch the least part
Of what you tear, you would pluck out my heart.
Great men make laws, that whosoe'er draws blood
Shall dye; but if they murder flocks, 'tis good.
I'll go eat my lamb at home, sir."
In Tourneur's "Revenger's Tragoedie" we find this dialogue :
"1. Tell me, what has made thee so melancholy?
2. Why, going to law.
1. Why, will that make a man melancholy?
2. Yes, to look long on ink and black
Buckram. I went to law in anno
Quadragesimo secundo, and I
Waded out of it in anno sexagesimo tertio.
1. What! three and twenty years in law?
2. I have known those that have been five and fifty,
And all about pullen and pigs.
1. May it be possible such men should breathe,
To vex the terms so much?
My lord. There are old men at the present
That are so poison'd with th' affectation
Of law-words, having had many suits canvass'd,
That their common talk is nothing but barb'rous
Latin: they cannot so much as pray, but
In law, that their sins may be remov'd, with
A writ of error, and their souls fetch'd up
To heaven with a certiorari."
in his lines on the "Restauration," says,·
"Your clemency has taught us to believe
It wise, as well as virtuous, to forgive.
And now the most offended shall proceed
In great forgiving, till no laws we need.
For law's slow progresses would quickly end,
Could we forgive as fast as men offend.
Revenge of past offences is the cause
Why peaceful minds consented to have laws:
Yet plaintiffs and defendants much mistake
Their cure, and their diseases lasting make;
For to be reconciled, and to comply,
Would prove their cheap and shortest remedy:
The length and charge of law vex all that sue;
Laws punish many, reconcile but few."
In "Gondibert " he says,
"Yet since on all war never needful was, Wise Aribert did keep the people sure By laws from little dangers; for the laws
Then from themselves, and not from pow'r secure.
Else conquerors, by making laws, o'ercome
Their own gain'd pow'r, and leave men fury free;
Who growing deaf to pow'r, the laws grow dumb;
Since none can plead, where all may judges be."
in rugged and forcible verse, thus scolds at lawyers in his Second Satire :
Of Coscus only breeds my just offense,
Whom time (which rots all, and makes botches pox,
And plodding on must make a calf an ox)
Hath made a lawyer; which (alas !) of late
But scarce a poet, jollier of this state
Than are new beneficial ministers, he throws
Like nets or lime-twigs, wheresoe'er he goes,
His title of barrister on every wench,
And woos in language of the pleas and bench.
'A motion, Lady.'-'Speak, Coscus.' 'I have been
In love e'er since tricesimus of the queen.
Continued claims I've made, injunctions got,
To stay my rival's suit, that he should not
Proceed; spare me, in Hilary term I went;
You said if I returned next 'size in Lent,
I should be in remitter of your grace;
In the interim my letters should take place
Of affidavits.' Words, words, which would tear
The tender labyrinth of a maid's soft ear
More, more than ten Slavonians' scoldings, more
Than when winds in our ruined abbeys roar.
When sick with poetry, and possest with muse
Thou wast run mad I hoped; but men which choose
Law practice for mere gain, bold souls repute
Worse than imbrotheled strumpets prostitute.
Now, like an owl-like watchman, he must walk
His hand still at a bill; now he must talk
Idly, like prisoners, which whole months will swear
That only suretyship hath brought them there,
And to every suitor lie in every thing,
Like a king's favorite, or like a king:
Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
Than carted whores, lie to the grave judge, for
Bastardy abounds not in kings' titles, nor
Simony and Sodomy in churchman's lives,
As these things do in him; by these he thrives.
Shortly, as the sea, he'll compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover-strand,
And spying heirs, melting with luxury,
Satan will not joy at their sins, as he;
For (as a thrifty wench scrapes kitchen stuff
And barrelling the droppings, and the snuff
Of wasting candles, which in thirty year,
Relicly kept, perchance buys wedding cheer)
Piece-meal he gets lands, and spends as much time
Wringing each acre, as maids pulling prime.
In parchment, then, large as the fields, he draws
Assurances, big as glossed civil laws,
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