And better may enable those
Who draw their Pleas, or Briefs compose,
To hold the balance of fuccefs
With fuch precision and address,
That both the combat may sustain,
And neither the advantage gain,
But when 'tis o'er and judgment given
The scales may prove so just and even,
That each may venture to make oath
The Law's impartial to them both,
When both in rags their folly rue,
The Victor, and the Vanquish'd too.
Hear then, and deign to be my Readers,
Attorneys, Barrifters, and Pleaders,
Shrieves, Juftices, and Civil Doctors,
Surrogates, Delegates, and Proctors,
Grave Judges too, with smiles peruse
The fallies of a Lawyer's Mufe,
A buxom Lafs, who fain would make
Your fober fides with Laughter shake;
And, good my Lords, be kind and gracious,
And though You deem her contumacious,
Ne'er to the Fleet, or Bridewell fend her,
But spare a ludicrous offender,
Who longs to make your muscles play,
And give your Cheeks a holiday.
Hear me, ye Wits, and Critics too,
And learned Dames in Stocking blue,
And you, ye Bards, my book who dip in,
In hopes to catch its Author tripping,
Some Mercy ftill, and Justice shew him,
And purchase ere you damn his Poem.
But, chiefly thou, dear Job, my Friend,
My Kinsman, to my Verfe attend;
By Education form'd to fhine
Confpicuous in the Pleading Line,
For you, from five years old to twenty,
Were cramm'd with Latin words in plenty,
Were bound apprentice to the Muses,
And forc'd with hard words, blows, and
To labour on Poetic ground,
Dactyls and Spondees to confound,
• Κέκλυτέ μευ Τρωες και ευκνήμιδες Αχαιαί. Hom
And when become in Fictions wife,
In Pagan histories and lies,
Were fent to dive at Granta's cells,
For Truth in Dialectic wells,
There duly bound for four years more
To ply the Philofophic oar,
Points metaphyfical to moot,
Chop Logic, wrangle, and difpute;
And now, by far the most ambitious
Of all the fons of Bergersdicius,
Present the Law with all the knowledge
You gather'd both at School and College,
Still bent on adding to your store
The Graces of a Pleader's lore;
And, better to improve your taste,
Are by your Parent's fondness plac'd
Among the bleft, the chofen few,
(Bleft, if their happiness they knew,)
Who for three hundred Guineas paid
To fome great Mafter of the Trade,
Have, at his rooms, by Special Favour,
His leave to use their best endeavour
By drawing Pleas, from nine till four,
To earn him twice three hundred more,
And, after dinner, may repair
To forefaid rooms, and then and there
Have forefaid leave, from five till ten,
To draw th' aforefaid Pleas again;
your blissful hours run on
Till three improving years are gone,
Permit me, with these rhymes, awhile,
Your leisure moments to beguile,
And guide your bold advent'rous ways
Safe through that wide and pathless maze
Where Law and Custom, Truth and Fiction,
Craft, Juftice, Strife, and Contradiction,
With every bleffing of Confusion,
Quirk, Error, Quibble, and Delufion,
Are all, if rightly understood,
Confpiring for the public Good,
Like jarring Ministers of State,
'Mid Anger, Jealousy, and Hate,
In friendly COALITION join'd,
To harmonize and bless mankind.
Of the KING, and his Prerogative-of the CIVIL and MUNICIPAL administration of public Fuftice, allegorically delineated and compared.
THE KING, O'er ev'ry Cause supreme, Be firft the Prelude of my Theme,
In HIM, fans Laches or Misfeafance,
Refides ideal' Omniprefence;
* Εκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα. THEOC.
1 Laches, in French, Lachès, fignifies flackness or negligence; upon the prefumption that the King is daily employed in the weighty affairs of Government, it is an established rule at Common Law, that no Laches fhall be imputed to HIм, nor He any way fuffer in his Interefts, which are certain and permanent. Bac.
2 Misfeafance fignifies wrong doing; Lord C. J. Hale
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