To see so many lawyers, advocates, so many tribunals, so little Justice; so many Magistrates, so little care of common good; so many Laws, yet never more disorders; Tribunal litium segetem, the Tribunal a Labyrinth, so many thousand suits in one court sometimes, so violently followed? To see injustissimum sæpè juri præsidentem, impium religioni, imperitissimum eruditioni, otiosissimum labori, monstrosum humanitati? To see a lamb executed, a woolf pronounce sentence, latro arraigned, and fur sit on the bench, the Judge severely punish others, and do worse himself, eundem furtum facere & punire, rapinam plectere, quum sit ipse raptor?

Laws altered, misconstrued, interpreted pro and con, as the Judge is made by friends, bribed, or otherwise affected as a nose of wax, good to day, none to morrow; or firm in his opinion, cast in his? Sentence prolonged, changed, ad arbitrium judicis, still the same case, one thrust out of his inheritance, another falsly put in by favor, false forged deeds or wils. Incisæ leges negliguntur, laws are made and not kept; or if put in execution, they be some silly ones that are punished.

As put case it be fornication, the father will dis-inherit or abdicate his child, quite casheer him, (out villain be gone, come no more in my sight) a poor man is miserably tormented with losse of his estate perhaps, goods, fortunes, good name, for ever disgraced, forsaken, and must do penance to the utmost; a mortal sin, and yet make the worst of it, nunquid aliud fecit, saith Tranio in the poet, nisi quod faciunt summis nati generibus? he hath done no more then what Gentlemen usually do. Neque novum, neque mirum, neque secus quam alii solent.

For in a great person, right worshipfull Sir, a right honorable Grandy, tis not a venial sin, no not a peccadillo, tis no offence at all, a common and ordinary thing, no man takes notice of it; he justifies it in publike, and peradventure brags of it, Nam quod turpe bonis, Titio, Seioque, decebat Crispinum ———

Many poor men, yonger brothers, &c. by reason of bad policie, and idle education (for they are likely brought up in no calling,) are compelled to beg or steal, and then hanged for theft; then which, what can be more ignominious, non minus enim turpe principi multa supplicia, quàm medico multa funera, tis the governours fault. Libentius verberant quàm docent, as School-masters do rather correct their pupils, then teach them when they do amisse: They had more need provide there should be no more theeves and beggers, as they ought with good policy, and take away the occasions, then let them run on, as they do to their own destruction: root out likewise those causes of wrangling, a multitude of lawyers, and compose controversies, lites lustrales & seculares, by some more compendious means.

Whereas now for every toy and trifle they go to law, Mugit litibus insanum forum, & sævit invicem discordantium rabies, they are ready to pull out one anothers throats; and for commodity to squieze blood, saith Hierom, out of their brothers heart, defame, lie, disgrace, backbite, rail, bear false witnesse, swear, forswear, fight and wrangle, spend their goods, lives, fortunes, friends, undo one another, to enrich an Harpy advocate, that preys upon them both, and cryes Eia Socrates, Eia Xantippe; or some corrupt Judg, that like the Kite in Æsop, while the mouse & frog fought, carried both away.

Generally they prey one upon another as so many ravenous birds, brute beasts, devouring fishes, no medium, omnes hic aut captantur aut captant; aut cadavera quæ lacerantur, aut corvi qui lacerant, either deceive or be deceived; tear others, or be torn in pieces themselves; like so many buckets in a Well, as one riseth another falleth, one’s emptie, another’s full; his ruine is a ladder to the third; such are our ordinary proceedings.

What’s the market? A place according to Anacharsis, wherein they cozen one another, a trap; nay, what’s the world it self? A vast Chaos, a confusion of manners, as fickle as the air, domicilium insanorum, a turbulent troop full of impurities, a mart of walking spirits, goblins, the theatre of hypocrisie, a shop of knavery, flattery, a nursery of villanie, the scene of babling, the school of giddinesse, the academie of vice; a warfare, ubi velis nolis pugnandum, aut vincas aut succumbas, in which kill or be killed; wherein every man is for himself, his private ends, and stands upon his own guard.

No charity, love, friendship, fear of God, alliance, affinitie, consanguinitie, Christianitie can contain them, but if they be any ways offended, or that string of commodity be touched, they fall foul. Old friends become bitter enemies on a suddain, for toyes and small offences, and they that erst were willing to do all mutual offices of love and kindnes, now revile, & persecute one another to death, with more then Vatinian hatred, & will not be reconciled.