tainly Grapes (as the Scripture saith) will not be gathered of thorns or thistles;[1] neither can justice yield her fruit with sweetness amongst the briars and brambles of catching and polling[2] clerks and ministers. The attendance of courts is subject to four bad instruments. First, certain persons that are sowers of suits; which make the court swell, and the country pine. The second sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction, and are not truly amici curiæ, but parasiti curiæ,[3] in puffing a court up beyond her bounds, for their own scraps[4] and advantage. The third sort is of those that may be accounted the left hands of courts; persons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice into oblique lines and labyrinths. And the fourth is the poller and exacter of fees; which justifies the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush whereunto while the sheep flies for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of his fleece. On the other side, an ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceedings, and understanding in the business of the court, is an excellent finger of a court; and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.
- ↑ "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Matthew vii. 16.
- ↑ Poll. To plunder; to exact 'graft.' Poller, a little further on, means a plunderer, a 'grafter.'
- ↑ Friends of the court, but parasites of the court.
- ↑ Scrap. In the provincial English of Norfolk, a scrap, or scrape, is a quantity of chaff mixed with grain and laid as a decoy to lure small birds for the purpose of shooting or netting them; hence, a snare. Familiar, in the spelling 'scrape,' meaning a situation of difficulty or perplexity. "Scrap. A villainous scheme or plot. Grose." A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English. John S. Farmer and W. E. Henley. 1905.
