a He gave a I did not know; it was provoking-I turned in no very good humour, and looked like a fool. The man I had finding two large pigs in my garden, bought of, relieved me by pointing out made a boy, whom I had just hired, my purchase, and Richard was for a drive them instantly to the pound, and time too busy to notice me. “ These in the evening in came Richard with are pretty lightfoots," said he then, one of his looks, and asked for money with his arch look, “ where shall I to get the pigs out of the pound. Out take 'em, sir?" "Why," said I, “ you of the pound,” said I,“ I get them out know very well, to the field." “Oh, of the pound! -whyl've had 'em putin." ay," quoth he,“ but may be they won't “ Then your honour," quoth Richard, like the field.” I could not in the least " will be sure to get 'em out." or Not tell what he meant, never having heard 1!” said I, indignantly; " let those get of consulting their liking. “ Well," 'em out that own them." The fellow said he," I will drive them there, but gave a double screw, and slightly if they don't like it they won't stop." curled his thin lips, and, affecting great “What do you mean?” said I. “Why, submission, replied in a low and slow them sheep be all greyhounds.” Shortly voice, " Them is your honour's own after, I met a neighbour, and told him pigs." This took me by surprise, what a purchase I had made—" And effectually dissipated my bile, i where are they?" replied he. “In the threw myself back in my chair, and field above the house,” said I. “ No, laughed out most heartily. Richard they are not,” says he, "for I have put his hand to his mouth, made just seen about that number break antics with his knees to suppress his over hedges, and away with 'em, as mirth; but it would not do. fast as they could scamper—if those way to his humour, laughed louder are yours you had better send after than I, and then as suddenly stoppedthem"-and going off-" When you've asked my pardon, adding-« Sure caught 'em, sell 'em.” This was, in your honour knows best ; but I think deed, a bad beginning. I went for we'd better get 'em out this time, and my man-he looked this time in my punish them (with a marked emphasis) face as I told my story-and told him next." to go after them. “Oh! there's not My second purchase was still much use in going after them,” said more unfortunate. This time I did he, “ at least not without a dog—and not trust to my own judgment, but away he went on the run. 1, like a fool, requested a neighbour farmer, who I am ashamed to confess it, little was going to a fair, to buy me six dreaming he was gone to borrow a sheep. “ Six sheep!” said Richard, sheep dog, let loose my large New. who was present, looking up now at foundland, and away I went along the me and now at Farmer L-, “six ewes road, as fast as my legs could carry in lamb this time.” He looked again About a mile on I found the at me, as much as to say, ri I doubt sheep; that is, I came in sight of them, yet if measter knows one from t'other." and pointed them out to the dog. Off The six ewes were bought-twentywent Neptune, and off went the sheep; five shillings a-piece. I had heard I saw him plunge into the midst of that a good shepherd knows every them-he had brought down one, and sheep in his large flock. I had the the rest went farther than ever. He curiosity to study the physiognomy of had, indeed, brought down one, and, mine :-in vain, I never could tell one by the time I came up, had made a from the other, and judging from the good hole in its side. The poor thing intenseness of my observation, I much was killed sure enough. Now I didn't doubt the fact. Well, I now had six mind the loss of the sheep, but was ewes in lamb. These will produce me in dismay at Richard's up-look, which atleast a lamb each; that will be twelve I knew awaited me. I met it, and twelve sheep_twice twelve, twentywas humbled_" Your honour," said four-and so I went on counting, till he,“ had better keep a hunter, and a (upon my fingers) I was master of a pack of hounds, for them deer's capi- tolerable flock. In the morning before tal sport, and I see your honour's in at breakfast, if any met me and asked the death.” After much time, trouble, where I had been, the answer was, and cost, the sheep were recovered, “ To look at my sheep"—after breakand as my friend advised, sold, at a fast, « to look at my sheep"_before loss. It was amusing enough to Rich- dinner, " to look at my sheep"_after ard the day of the disaster. I re- dinner, the same. I was looking at me. " I've was. 66 Well, my sheep all day, and “wool-gather about a mile from the town. ing all night.” I dreamed of them- brought 'em back," said he, “ but I I was Jason going after the golden doubt if two of 'em be worth the fetchfleece-I was a shepherd king. Great ing!” The following day another things, they say, arise from small be- died, and within a few days another. ginnings ; so it was with me, wonder. My six sheep were now reduced to ful speculations arose out of my six two. Richard had no confidence in ewes in lamb. I did Richard the jus their looks, and said if one would lamb tice to tell him, one day, that he was it would be lucky. After a time they as watchful of my six sheep as I did lamb, and here was a circumstance He gave one of his looks, and said, I thought very odd, one lambed a day suddenly dropping his speech into or two before the other. great gravity, “ They must be look'd Richard,” said I, jokingly, “ we have arter, for I question if 'twouldn't be now three of 'em!” Your honour best to send 'em to the butcher !" won't have 'em long," was the reply, Send my six ewes in lamb to a and ere many hours the lamb died. butcher! Why send them to a but. In a day or two the other ewe lambed cher ? thought I. Not long after, -two lambs. One was taken from seeing Richard, I said, for something her, and put to the ewe that had lost to say, “ Well, Richard, have you seen her lamb. She smelled at it, and kicked my six sheep this morning i “ No, it away. It was then taken back to sir,” quoth Richard, and then screw. its own mother, but she would have ing up some, and unscrewing others nothing to do with it, butted at it, and of his features, “ I have seen five, sent it packing. They were all of them for t'other's mutton, and mutton put into a small orchard ; it was quite your honour wont like to eat." One curious and sad to see the poor little of my sheep was dead. The week thing run first to one then to the other, following, another. I had now but and be rejected by both. Here Richard four sheep out of six.-—“ Bad work, showed his knowledge. He made a Richard,” said I, “ four out of six." sort of coat of the dead one's skin, and “ Four sheep and two skins, your put it on the rejected living on the honour will please to count them," is Disown'd." The creature took to quoth the scrutinizing Richard. To it immediately. I had now two sheep make the best of it, and be before. and two lambs, for my purchase of six ; hand with my joke to my friend then one of the sheep and one of the Richard, I said to him, “ Well, we lambs got bad heads, and Richard have four sheep and two treasures of pronounced their doom, and advised skins.”_" No, your honour, excuse me to send them to the next fair-the me, you're wrong there, four sheep lambs by this time were grown up to only, the skins were stolen last night.” look as big nearly as their mothers There was no standing this_it was I took his advice, and to the fair he The day after came the saddest went with them, and brought me back news of all— Richard called me from £1, 3s. 8d. ; a pretty business this my bed.” “ Them as took the skins," was—keep thrown away_nearly all said he,“ have come for the sheep the purchase-money thrown away-all they're gone." 6. Gone !" said I, my looking at the sheep thrown away, 66 where ?" “ Most likely,” replied nothing left but the remembrance of he, " to Fair.” • The fair- Richard's looks, sayings, and doings, that's twelve miles off, Richard." which I doubt not, you, Eusebius, “ Yes, sir, and them as took 'em must will think well worth the cost. I need have took 'em in a light cart, for two not go on to tell you how the cow got of 'em never could have gone there staked, the horse wounded by a pick a-foot, and be sure they're at the fair run into him at hay-making, how the at L- by this time." sow devoured her young--these are six ewes in lamb, I had not even a minor annoyances. There were others skin. I thought it right to send much more serious, so that erelong I after them, and accordingly Rich- found my spirits flag ; the love of farmard went, and returned the night ing, like most forced loves, departed following with my four sheep. The from me, ageneral ennuicame upon me. thief, either finding them not market- The “ Majorque videri' came upon able, or from fear or other cause, had every trouble. I saw nothing in a abandoned them, and they were found pleasant light, for, as yet, I could not so. Thus of my return to my former pursuits. The are going to do it,” said I. “There will worst of care is, that it makes a man be a revolution, if they do," said he. see, as it were, quite through the There was a man once, said I, conlayer of pleasure and delight, that demned contrary to the opinion of his like a kindly atmosphere envelopes lawyer. They are going to hang me, the world, down to the bare skeleton said the unfortunate. No, they wont, of things, and presents to the intellec. said the lawyer. But they have con. tual eye nothing but deformity. We demned me, said the unfortunate become disenchanted, ungifted. As criminal, and I am to be hanged on in the fabulous times, when gods Monday. They dare not, said the mingled in the battles of men, there lawyer. But they will, I tell you, was a cloud removed from before the said the condemned. Let me see them eyes of the heroes to enable them to do it, said the lawyer; I wish they see deities ; so is it now removed by would, that's all. Some such satis: care to enable us to see devils. So factory result generally ended these much, Eusebius, are we deteriorated discussions. I was like the man that from the golden age. We are even said, if he had been bred a hatter, men beyond the iron—we live in an age of would have come into the world withmud and ditch-water, which is con. out heads. I determined, therefore, tinually stirred into horrible commo- to give up farming, before it gave me tion and restlessness, by the tempests up. I determined to dispose of my of our own wilful passions. foolish speculation, and have done so; After that splenetic burst, let me yet, I cannot but tell you the last shortly tell you how I came to farming conversation between me and give up the whole concern. I had Richard. You know what a horrible no sooner bought my land, than the season we have had. One day, as it agitation of the corn-laws began. was pouring rain, Richard said there If successful, my land, I found, would was no help for it, but the-what shall inevitably go out of cultivation, per- we call it, what onght to have been haps the best thing that could befallit, hay, must be drawn into the yard, it while I continued to farm. The agi. was good for nothing but muck. tation would not be successful, said “ It's terribly wet,” says he—" and one, because the Premier thinks it them oats is wet.” “ Ay, ay," said madness and folly. “ Very well," I, in disgust, “ It's all wet, Richard, said I, " but he thinks the people's all wet, wet, wet." “ No, your honfollies must be given into, and that our, quoth Richard, with his most modern ministers are not to govern, exquisite look, " It ain't all wet, the but be governed.” “ They wont ruin cow's dry!"your land,” said another but they My dear Eusebius, ever yours LECTOR ON LAY QUIBBLING. To Christopher North, Esq. ens. My Dear Sir, ther Leguleius has not contributed to Your former kindness in admitting inspire the public with a better taste into Maga an humble attempt of for that union of imaginative inven. mine to correct and illustrate litera- tion and technical accuracy which so ture by a reference to legal princi- often distinguishes the pages of Dickples, emboldens me, after a consider. I think also I see, though I am able interval, to address you again, not entitled to say, that the very able and on a somewhat similar topic. I contributor of • Ten Thousand aam not without a persuasion that my Year” must have studied in the same zealous though feeble efforts in that school. The greatest compliment, article, have had a beneficial effect on however, which I consider to have literary composition ; and when I see been paid to my views, is to be found the universal success of a member of in your own recent notice of Mr the legal profession in fictitious nar- Moyle's State Trials, which, allow me rative, I sometimes ask myself whe. to say, displays a taste for legal dis ? cussion that would have done credit lawyer about them, except his phrato a silk gown. seology. In this view we might justly Various circumstances, which it exclaim, in the spirit of a great living would be painful to particularize, have poet, tended to disincline me for actual “ O many are the lawyers that are sown professional practice, which, although By nature ; men endow'd with nicest attended with its advantages, is on quirks, the whole, I believe, not worth de- The quibble and the fallacy refined : siring, and greatly beneath the level But wanting the accomplishment of slang, of a man of true genius. Not but Which in the docile season of their youth what I should be willing enough to It was denied them to acquire, through undertake the business of any of your lack friends or others, if particularly pressed Of lectures, or the inspiring food of inns ; upon me, and made worth my while; Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been but, generally speaking, I feel quite led indifferent as to either employment By circumstance to take unto the height or emolument. I will not, however, The measure of themselves for wig and yield to any member of the profes. They go to the grave unheard of.” sion in a sense of its dignity, or a zeal for its advancement, and it is But, in truth, the propensities to from these motives that I at present which I refer are, as I have said, take up the pen. The legal profes- neither a product nor a peculiarity of sion, Mr North, has for ages been forensic pursuits. The lawyer may shamefully calumniated ; in public or reduce them into method and system ; in private, in books or in conversa- he may give names to his tools, and tion, on the stage or at the hustings, acquire a readier facility of finding no jest is generally so ready or so and of handling them when they are acceptable as a wipe at the lawyers. wanted. But he does not invent or They are denounced as the most mer. make them; and common life furnishes cenary, while in truth they are the daily instances of those who, by the most liberal, of mankind; as the most force of native genius, can cast all impudent, while they are the most his rules into the shade, and “snatch modest ; as the most tricky and a grace beyond the reach of art." treacherous, while they are the most The lawyer and the fencing-master fair and upright. Of their modesty have a near resemblance to each and disinterestedness I may take an- other ; both of them acquire a techother opportunity to speak ; I propose nical facility which surpasses the averat present to confine myself to their age power of uninstructed talent ; vindication in reference to the third both of them invent a vocabulary of charge that I have noticed. their own, to express the operations It must be confessed, that the prac. with which they are familiar; but tice of the law leads occasionally to a both of them merely improve upon good deal of verbal criticism and nice nature, and it is just as inherent in analysis. But it is utterly unjust to humanity to quibble and equivocate, lay these faults, if faults they be, at as it is to thump or thrust. "Let me the door of the lawyers, when they add, that the legal profession ought to are in truth the legitimate progeny of complete the parallel by chiefly pera human nature in general, and not of forming its functions as a science of our profession in particular. In every self-defence, by means of which the town and hamlet in the kingdom, in natural devices and subtleties of men all conditions and situations, innumer. may be parried and returned upon able persons are to be found, of every themselves, and the crafty foiled at age and either sex, who possess the their own weapons. whole faculty of quirking and quib- I propose in this paper to take a bling in the most consummate perfec- pretty comprehensive review of human tion. The same thing exists, and has history and manners, in order to de. existed in all ages and countries, monstrate the universal prevalence of civilized or savage ; and, if these qua- verbal frauds and evasions among all lities are to be considered in any way classes of laymen, to a degree far characteristic of the legal profession, exceeding what is known or imagined there are innumerable people in the among lawyers ; and to establish inci. world who have every thing of the dentally, at the same time, that the science of the law, instead of sug- fact, bought, for a small price, as gesting or promoting such deceptions, much land as could be enclosed with is chiefly occupied in extirpating or a bull's hide, (in the terms, we preretrenching them. I shall not here sume, mentioned by Virgil,) had the trouble myself to reduce my examples ingenuity to cut the medium of meato distinct categories, but shall give surement into slender thongs, and thus them as they come to hand. I begin acquired a very large tract of country with some striking instances from for an old song, contrary to the mani. ancient history, where the “prisca fest good faith of the transaction. fides" appears often to have been of the Ancient writers have much puzzled most un principled description in ages themselves about the origin and etyand countries in which lawyers had mology of the name of Dido, which never been heard of. appears to have been superadded to There is some propriety, perhaps, the lady's earlier appellation of Eliza, in beginning the list with a Carthagi. some assigning one explanation of it nian anecdote ; though the Punic faith and some another. An ingenious phiof later times seems generally to have lological friend has happily suggested been content with an open violation to me that it may have referred to the of fair-dealing, without even the cloak transaction we have above noticed, of an equivocation to cover it. The and may be closely connected with foundress of Carthage, however, com. the English word “diddle"- '-a phrase menced on a different plan. Virgil, so appropriate to the tru character who, with all his Italian prejudices, of that proceeding. He also observes, intended undoubtedly to represent that the story may have led to the old Dido in an amiable light, has only English term of a hide of land. slightly touched upon her purchase of Having mentioned the name of Vir. the site for Carthage in these general gil, I am naturally induced to notice words, a very unworthy quibble to which that Mercatique solum facti de nomine Byr- mortal' Epic. I allude to the terms great poet has descended in his im and fulfilment of the prediction of the Taurino quantum potuit circumdare ter Harpies, denounced against Æneas on go.” occasion of his unwarrantable attack But historians leave us no room to upon their property and persons. doubt, that Dido having, in point of “ Una in præcelsâ consedit rupe Celæno, Bellum etiam pro cæde boum stratisque juvencis, Æn. III. 254-257. Dryden thus translates the passage, though not, perhaps, quite accurately, as mensas might be considered more properly to mean tables than plates : “ High on the craggy cliffs Celæno sate, What! not contented with our oxen slain, sam, a |
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