I. This retainer to the law, Sir, begins his letter with Ingratum si dixere omnia dixere; and has the impudence to tell me, that it was a saying of one of the greatest sages of antiquity, as if a man were a jot the wiser for his calling him so; and, like a presuming coxcomb as he is, presumes I am no stranger to his name and merits. Pray, Sir, tell him from me, that he has falsify’d his quotation; for which crime, by an old statute of king Ina, as you will find in Gothofred and Panormitanus, he ought to do penance in a certain wooden machine, call’d in Latin, Collistrigium, and in English a Pillory; and that in all the antient manuscripts both in the Vatican and Bodleian libraries, not to mention those of the duke of Courland, and the prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, ’tis written, Attornatum si dixeris, omnia dixeris; which is as much as to say, Sir, that if you call a man an attorney, you call him all the rogues and rascals in the world.
II. Before I proceed any farther, I must beg the favour of you to inform him, that we are much surpriz’d here to find an attorney guilty of so much nonsense, as to send down Latin to the university, where we have more than we know well what to do with. ’Tis as bad as sending Derby-ale from Fullwood’s-rents to the town of Derby, or sturgeon to Huntingdon. In fine, as he has manag’d matters, ’tis downright murderium (he knows the meaning of that word) for which he must never expect the benefit of the clergy.
To pass over his next idle quotation, and an old batter’d English proverb; the next person he falls upon, is the Roman orator; and with his usual discretion, he gives me to understand that he means Tully by him. ’Tis well he tells us whom he means; for of all the men in the world, I thought an attorney had as little to do with an orator, as a bawd with an eunuch. But why should a fellow that never meant any thing in his life, pretend to meaning? Or how came Tully and such a blockhead to be acquainted? Well, but Tully, he says, observes that the earth itself, which, I hope by the bye, will one of these days stop his pettifegging mouth, for calling it the vilest of the four elements, is a standing testimony against ingratitude; and why forsooth, because it returns the husbandman two for one. I can’t imagine how it should come into this wretch’s head to rail at ingratitude, who is the most ungrateful devil that ever liv’d; and ’tis ten to one but I prove it before I have done with him. He is ungrateful in the first place to his schoolmaster, for making no better use of the Latin he wipp’d into him. He is ungrateful to the Common Law, for polluting it which wicked sentences purloin’d out of Pagan authors: and lastly, he is ungrateful to the Inn he lives in, for dreaming seven whole years there to no purpose, and continuing as great a blockhead as when he first come to town.
Towards the conclusion of his letter, you must understand, says he, that one—This he said to show his civility and good manners; You must understand? Why suppose I won’t understand, how will he help himself? Or what man alive can understand a fellow that murders his thoughts between two languages? but I find I must understand him right or wrong. After this compliment, he tells me an idle foolish story of a widow in Shoe-lane, and raves about five pounds, that I know nothing of; and is so full of it that a few lines below he calls it the sum supradict. I shall take another opportunity to knock this impertinent tale on the head, and shall only desire you at present to acquaint this W. H. from me, that when he has answer’d this letter, I design to give him satisfaction in his other points. In the mean time, unknown Sir, I am as the Roman orator has it,
Tuus ab ovo usque ad mala,
Q. Z.
LETTER II.
SIR,
I Don’t know what plenty of Latin you may have in the University; tho’, by the bye, I can hardly believe you are so overstock’d with it as you pretend; but I dare swear that good manners are very scarce things among you, and your letter sufficiently demonstrates it.
You are angry with me, it seems, for quoting a few Latin sentences; I am afraid ’tis the meaning of them, and not the language that disgusts you; for some people can’t endure to hear the truth told them in any tongue whatever: but, under favour, Sir, what mighty virtue should there be in the air of Oxford and Cambridge, that Latin should only flourish there? Or why should not Tully take up his quarters in the Inns of Chancery, as well as one of your Colleges? I am sure we can give him better meat and drink, and perhaps have cleaner and larger rooms to entertain him.
Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora POENI,
Nec tam aversus equoss TYRIA sol jungit ab urbe.