Repose, my muse; and listen to the groans.
Let weary lawyers rest awhile their bones.
Nature demands when mortals cease to live,
That nought should move until the corpse revive.
Just so in law all motion is represt,
When dies a wretch who had some interest,
No matter what—’tis clear that the survivor
Can take no step without a due revivor.[29]
What! raise the dead? I hear the world exclaim,
With less of miracle, ’tis much the same.
In olden times the monks by potent spell
Could summon spectres from their narrow cell,—
Could send them howling back unto their graves
Or sink for ever in Egyptian waves.
So now the spiritual courts restore
A shade at least of him who breathes no more—
Unlike perhaps in stature, form, and mind,
But well for earthly purposes design’d—
A sort of proxy, who in matter civil
Must back his principal thro’ good or evil.—
Taste not the honey, tho’ he deem it sweet,
Nor ’scape the thorns, altho’ they tear his feet.
In wrong or right the court’s rapacious crew
Will have their fees, and ready payment too,—
But then all others from the spoil they scare,
Like hungry wolves, that no partition bear.
The poor trustee a thankless office boasts,
Nought can he gain, except a bill of costs.
Away from Doctors Commons bear the sprite,
And let him thence in Lincolns Inn alight.
There will he serve, like Hercules, to drag
The suit—a Cacus—from some dusty bag,
And rouse fierce Rapine from his lurking den
To feed once more upon the sons of men.
When time has number’d thus five years or more
The cause just stands where it was plac’d before—
Like flickering star, that seems in fancy’s eye
To rove, a planet, thro’ the midnight sky;—
But view’d more narrowly or with a glass,
We find its station ever, where it was.
Then flies another age; and Grabble dead
Some equal scoundrel must be found instead.[30]
Demand the papers from his heir at law
Who strait a lumping bill of costs will draw.
This must be paid before a sheet shall go—
To bite the biter take his claim to Lowe.
Hail mighty Tonsor of a lawyers bill!
The whole profession trembles at thy skill.
Thine awful science, like a magic wand
Can turn each golden item into sand;
Reduce a crown to half, as quick as thought,
And turn each six and eight-pence into nought—
That placid eye and countenance demure
To passing glance would tell not much of lure,
Nor from thy speech so more than calmly smooth,
Would inexperience guess the serpent’s tooth.
No beast, no reptile, bites his fellow kind;—
But those who trust in Lowe, deceit will find.
He smiles sometimes; but oh! beware that smile,
The certain symptom of some latent guile;
Or when perhaps he feels unusual glee,
To make large havoc with a queried fee.
But why thus censure what may tend to good?
The worst of poisons can be used for food.
And thus in Lowe, who brethren treats with scorn,
The suitor finds a friend when most forlorn.
Not that he acts his principles to shew—
But as in hatred to some mortal foe;
No matter whom—to him ’tis all the same,
How near in friendship, or how just in fame;
To all he deals his art insidious round,
And happy those who can escape a wound;
On, demon, on; pursue thy dark career,
Beloved by none, detested by thy peer.
On earth thy province leads to Satan’s verge,
Then, as his bailiff, be thy brother’s scourge!
And when from hell he goes for souls to pimp,
Be thine the task to pinch each naughty imp,—
To tear from Famine half its stygian meal,
And grind Despair for pastime on a wheel!
New brooms sweep clean, and with good luck to guide,
The cause at last may to a hearing glide;—
But not ’till many more long years have flown,—
Deaths and revivors following one by one.
Then draw the briefs, and on your clerks impose
That not for life they copy words to close;
It looks unseemly, thus the truth restrain:—
How much more cash you by such precept gain.
What means a brief? to shorten well the case,
And copious matter cram in narrow space.
Then what is this that modern counsel wield,
(A giant manual) when they take the field?
The pleading’s length would make a saint bewail,
But why, like comet, must it have a tail?
With facts the speaker should his foe engage;
Then why with observations[31] swell the page?
Ask not; the meaning more than light is clear,
That thieves are honest men, the law too dear.
Next to the bar, a less unworthy den,
Where shine at least some honourable men:—
But still e’en there the thirst of gain hath fix’d
Its blighting venom with dishonour mixed;
Hath hurl’d proud Reason from her proper throne,
And turn’d compassion to a block of stone.
In days of yore, when learning first began
To raise nice questions on the rights of man;
When law was as a science first revealed,
And civil wrongs by golden plaisters healed:
Superior talents throng’d the judgment place,
But not for lucre; bribes involved disgrace.
For rich and poor alike the voice was raised;
No sordid motives e’er that voice debas’d:
Ambition led; each sought the road to fame;
His country’s praises, and an honest name.
How changed the manners of the present time,
Less fond of virtue, and more prone to crime;
Deserted poverty is heard no more,
Or heard in vain oppression to deplore.
Wealth spreads its influence in perpetual show’rs,
And rears of eloquence the choicest flow’rs.
Departed Romilly[32]! the muse with tears
Turns to record what all thy merit sears.
The love of gold engaged thy mind too much,
And spoiled perfection with it’s reptile touch.
E’en while admiring senates hail’d thy speech—
The patriot, whom corruption could not reach;
Bold, independent, to thy country firm—
Thy mind was canker’d by the secret worm—
The worm of Avarice, that warps the sight,
And paints each shade of wrong with all the tints of Right.