From a scene of matrimonial tumult here is one of matrimonial tranquillity. [Matrimonial picture brought on, and you go forward.] Here is an after-dinner wedlock tête-à-tête, a mere matrimonial vis-à-vis; the husband in a yawning state of dissipation, and the lady in almost the same drowsy attitude, called, A nothing-to-doishness. If an unexpected visitor should happen to break in upon their solitude, the lady, in her apology, declares that "she is horribly chagrined, and most immensely out of countenance, to be caught in such a deshabille: but, upon honour, she did not mind how her clothes were huddled on, not expecting any company, there being nobody at home but her husband."
The gentleman, he shakes his guest by the hand, and says, "I am heartily glad to see you, Jack; I don't know how it was, I was almost asleep; for, as there was nobody at home but my wife, I did not know what to do with myself."
END OF PART III. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
PART IV.
We shall now consider the law, as our laws are very considerable, both in bulk and number, according as the statutes declare; considerandi, considerando, considerandum; and are not to be meddled with by those that don't understand 'em. Law always expressing itself with true grammatical precision, never confounding moods, cases, or genders, except indeed when a woman happens accidentally to be slain, then the verdict is always brought in man-slaughter. The essence of the law is altercation; for the law can altercate, fulminate, deprecate, irritate, and go on at any rate. Now the quintessence of the law has, according to its name, five parts. The first is the beginning, or incipiendum; the second the uncertainty, or dubitandum; the third delay, or puzzliendum; fourthly replication without endum; and, fifthly, monstrum et horrendum.
All which are exemplified in the following cases, Daniel against Dishclout.—Daniel was groom in the same family wherein Dishclout was cookmaid; and Daniel, returning home one day fuddled, he stooped down to take a sop out of the dripping-pan, which spoiled his clothes, and he was advised to bring his action against the cookmaid; the pleadings of which were as follow. The first person who spoke was Mr. Serjeant Snuffle. He began, saying, "Since I have the honour to be pitched upon to open this cause to your Lordship, I shall not impertinently presume to take up any of your Lordship's time by a round-about circumlocutory manner of speaking or talking, quite foreign to the purpose, and not any ways relating to the matter in hand. I shall, I will, I design to shew what damages my client has sustained hereupon, whereupon, and thereupon. Now, my Lord, my client, being a servant in the same family with Dishclout, and not being at board wages, imagined he had a right to the fee-simple of the dripping-pan, therefore he made an attachment on the sop with his right-hand, which the defendant replevied with her left, tripped us up, and tumbled us into the dripping-pan. Now, in Broughton's Reports, Slack versus Small wood, it is said that primus strocus sine jocus, absolutus est provokus. Now who gave the primus strocus? who gave the first offence? Why, the cook; she brought the driping-pan there; for, my Lord, though we will allow, if we had not been there, we could not have been thrown down there; yet, my Lord, if the dripping-pan had not been there, for us to have tumbled down into, we could not have tumbled into the dripping-pan." The next counsel on the same side began with, "My Lord, he who makes use of many words to no purpose has not much to say for himself, therefore I shall come to the point at once; at once and immediately I shall come to the point. My client was in liquor: the liquor in him having served an ejectment upon his understanding, common sense was nonsuited, and he was a man beside himself, as Dr. Biblibus declares, in his Dissertation upon Bumpers, in the 139th folio volume of the Abridgment of the Statutes, page 1286, where he says, that a drunken man is homo duplicans, or a double man; not only because he sees things double, but also because he is not as he should be, profecto ipse he; but is as he should not be, defecto tipse he."
The counsel on the other side rose up gracefully, playing with his ruffles prettily, and tossing the ties of his wig about emphatically. He began with, "My Lord, and you, gentlemen of the jury, I humbly do conceive I have the authority to declare that I am counsel in this case for the defendant; therefore, my Lord, I shall not flourish away in words; words are no more than filligree work. Some people may think them an embellishment; but to me it is a matter of astonishment how any one can be so impertinent to the detriment of all rudiment. But, my Lord, this is not to be looked at through the medium of right and wrong; for the law knows no medium, and right and wrong are but its shadows. Now, in the first place, they have called a kitchen my client's premises. Now a kitchen is nobody's premises; a kitchen is not a warehouse, nor a wash-house, a brew-house, nor a bake-house, an inn-house, nor an out-house, nor a dwelling-house; no, my Lord, 'tis absolutely and bona fide neither more nor less than a kitchen, or, as the law more classically expresses, a kitchen is, camera necessaria pro usus cookare; cum saucepannis, stewpannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoak-jacko,pro roastandum, boilandum,fryandum, et plum-pudding mixandum, pro turtle soupos, calve's-head-hashibus, cum calipee et calepashibus.
"But we shall not avail ourselves of an alibi, but admit of the existence of a cook-maid. Now my Lord, we shall take it upon a new ground, and beg a new trial; for, as they have curtailed our name from plain Mary into Moll, I hope the court will not allow of this; for, if they were to allow of mistakes, what would the law do? for, when the law don't find mistakes, it is the business of the law to make them." Therefore the court allowed them the liberty of a new trial; for the law is our liberty, and it is happy for us we have the liberty to go to law.