Speed onward, Pegasus, and take a peep,
Where sixty clerks with their six elders sleep;[53]
Of whom the muse no good account can give,—
The worst of idlers in a dronish hive.
To do their duty on the Bible sworn;—
That oath should seem as taken but in scorn.
Why should they labour in so bad a trade?
Ten pence for ninety words is vilely paid;
And six and eight-pence adds but little strength,
When taxing bills according to their length.
Luxurious Baines! how often have I knelt
To beg thy presence, ’ere the news was spelt!
When idle fits enchained thee to the fire,
In vain persuasion, or the look of ire.
No force could motion to thy limbs impart;
A torpid creature, without head or heart!
And yet in thee the same weak point abounds.
Paid on account a cheque for fifty pounds
Thou feelest then a temper far more civil,
And for that sum would follow to the devil.
No more the blood-drops stagnate in thy veins;
No more can truth describe thee, lazy Baines!
Taxation[54] hail! thine academic school
Behold, where all are taught to judge by rule,
Not reason. Fools are ever paid the same
As those, whose talents grace the rolls of fame.
Successful labour gets no better pay
Than indolence, that loiters on the way;—
No matter what the toil, or care, or pain,—
Should usage fail, remonstrance pleads in vain.
In odious custom judgment lies interr’d;
To that is argument and sense referr’d.
By general nostrums quacks endanger life,
So clerks in court apply the pruning knife.
The system lops each rotten bough, ’tis true;
But then it severs many a sound one too.
Turn to the tedious process of contempt;—
Why should my foe from payment be exempt,
If, firm in every stage, except the last,
He leaves to me all damage of the past?—
Nor this the only point for suitors grief;
Ten thousand others claim a like relief.
If judges must permit delay at all,
The costs at least should on the guilty fall:
For where is justice, reason, law, or sense,
When parties in the wrong escape th’ expense.
No shelter lies beneath a silly rule;
It serves but to increase the ridicule;—
The blund’ring precept of some ancient sage,
Whose light is darkness in the present age.
There are, I hear, who bound in plainer calf
From every item always tax one half—
A sapient plan! which he, who draws the bill,
Can well defeat without a Turpin’s skill.
’Tis but to double what he means to score,
And thus hath plunder found another door;—
A place of entrance smuggled, as it were,
Thro’ one, who should prevent intrusion there!
I leave the cause with which my strain began;
For why again the same dull topics scan?
What Cross decides will not be right in course,—
Of new delays, and fresh appeals the source!
The ground, law’s hopeless victim trod before,
Must be re-trac’d with tardy pace once more.
Years of long trial he must pass again,
Till death shall finish, not his suit but pain;
And if, perchance, his twentieth heir shall see
An end to this heart-eating misery,
To pay large extra-costs the wretch can’t fail,—
His fate St. Lukes, the Workhouse, or a Jail.
A Court of Equity is well defin’d
By those, who call it “very, very kind,—”
The dwarf, who to a giant friend applied,
Obtain’d large conquests fighting by his side;
But every battle lopp’d away a limb.
Suitors! are you not very much like him?
Without that giant’s aid in vain the war;
But his is all the profit, yours the scar.
What boots success, if dearly bought with life?
Defend me, Heaven! from such victorious strife.
Ye dwarfs, no more such strong protection seek,
Unequal friendships always hurt the weak!
Ye injured, shun all help from Chancery!
The Court’s a hell, of which death keeps the key!!!
Still are there cases, where it seems to shine,
But ’tis like icicle in iron mine,—
Bright for a time, and brilliant beams it’s ray,
But soon it breaks or melting fades away;—
Thus when the Court, a Foundling Hospital,
On orphan babes[55] it’s parent hand lets fall,
The deed so charitably good appears,
That fond delusion hails the sight with tears;—
But soon alas! those tears of joy will turn
To drops of bitter woe, the soul to burn—
E’en babes must pay of guardianship the price,
And feel the gripe of legal avarice.
The masters word must ever guide their fate
In person, conduct, marriage, or estate.
Some trees want felling; houses claim repair;
A lease is sought; are the conditions fair?
Receivers would upon a farm distrain;
Guardians of too small maintenance complain;
In every case, before an act be done,
Must approbation from the Court be won;
Aye, e’n ere Hymen’s torch can hallow love,
The Court and Master must its joys approve.
Oh! happy infants, how supremely blest!
To this parental care is but a jest.
A tiger of her young, by death withdrawn,
Supplied the loss by suckling a young fawn.
Maternal love into her bosom crept,
And for a time each wilder passion slept;
But famine soon upon the savage grew;
With sparkling eyes her foster cub she drew
Close to her dugs, where lay the milky sup;
And out of pure affection eat it up.
Just so the Court each tender orphan treats;
But ’tis the fortune, not the babe, it eats.
When men run mad, the Court effectual pains
Exerts, that none should e’er resume their brains;
For picture one, who buried in the tomb
Should wake again amid the charnel’s gloom,
Find his cold corpse by winding sheets secur’d.
And thus within a narrow vault immured;
Say, would the light of his returning sense
Do more, than once again expel it thence?
E’en so the maniac, if, by chance, a beam
Of wand’ring reason thro’ his head should gleam,
What speechless horror would he feel to see
Himself and substance wards of Chancery?
That prospect all reviving sense would sever,
And plunge his mind in darkest night for ever!
Should partners quarrel in their mutual trade,
What friend so ready as the Court to aid?
View’d from afar it’s proffers kind may seem,
But near acquaintance proves the whole a dream.
Death at our call a visit oft will pay,
Surprised to find we wish him far away;—
So Chancery suitors are compelled with grief
To spurn the hand, from which they sought relief
Whate’er the joint concern; for five per cent
The court secures an able management;
Keeps just account, but at a large expense,
And claims great merit for it’s abstinence.
Thus Eldon long of Opera House the warden,
And erst ex-manager of Covent Garden,[56]
Play’d many parts on the commercial stage;—
The most extensive chapman of the age.
In iron now, and now in brass he dealt,
But gold would never in his fingers melt;
With careful hand he kept the precious ore,
And every guinea made him wish for more.