Lus. We thank thee.
How strangely such a coarse homely salute
Shows in the palace, where we greet in fire—
Nimble and desperate tongues: should we name
God in a salutation, 'twould ne'er be stood on,[82] heaven!
Tell me, what has made thee so melancholy?
Ven. Why, going to law.
Lus. Why, will that make a man melancholy?
Ven. Yes, to look long upon ink and black buckram. I went me to law in anno quadragesimo secundo, and I waded out of it in anno sexagesimo tertio.
Lus. What, three-and-twenty years in law?
Ven. I have known those that have been five-and-fifty, and all about pullen[83] and pigs.
Lus. May it be possible such men should breathe, To vex the terms so much?
Ven. Tis food to some, my lord. There are old men at the present, that are so poisoned with the affectation of law-words (having had many suits canvassed), that their common talk is nothing but Barbary Latin. They cannot so much as pray but in law, that their sins may be removed with a writ of error, and their souls fetched up to heaven with a sasarara.[84]
Hip.[85] It seems most strange to me;
Yet all the world meets round in the same bent:
Where the heart's set, there goes the tongue's consent.
How dost apply thy studies, fellow?
Ven. Study? why, to think how a great rich man lies a-dying, and a poor cobbler tolls the bell for him. How he cannot depart the world, and see the great chest stand before him, when he lies speechless. How he will point you readily to all the boxes; and when he is past all memory, as the gossips guess, then thinks he of forfeitures and obligations; nay, when to all men's hearings he whurls and rattles in the throat, he's busy threatening his poor tenants. And this would last me now some seven years' thinking, or thereabouts. But I have a conceit a-coming in picture upon this; I draw it myself, which, i' faith, la, I'll present to your honour; you shall not choose but like it, for your honour shall give me nothing for it.