CANTO III.]
HUDIBRAS.
413
In which, whoever wins the day,
The whole profession's sure to pay.[1]
Beside, no mountebanks, nor cheats,
Dare undertake to do their feats, 490
When in all other sciences
They swarm like insects, and increase.
For what bigot[2] durst ever draw,
By Inward Light, a deed in law?
Or could hold forth by Revelation, 495
An answer to a declaration?
For those that meddle with their tools.
Will cut their fingers, if they're fools:
And if you follow their advice,
In bills, and answers, and replies, 500
They'll write a love-letter in chancery,
Shall bring her upon oath to answer ye,
And soon reduce her t' be your wife,
Or make her weary of her life.
The Knight, who us'd with tricks and shifts 505
To edify by Ralpho's gifts,
But in appearance cried him down,[3]
To make them better seem his own,
All plagiaries' constant course
Of sinking when they take a purse,[4] 510
Resolv'd to follow his advice,
But kept it from him by disguise;
And, after stubborn contradiction,
To counterfeit his own conviction,
And, by transition, fall upon 515
The resolution as his own.
Quoth he, This gambol thou advisest
Is, of all others, the unwisest;
For, if I think by law to gain her,
There's nothing sillier nor vainer, 520
The whole profession's sure to pay.[1]
Beside, no mountebanks, nor cheats,
Dare undertake to do their feats, 490
When in all other sciences
They swarm like insects, and increase.
For what bigot[2] durst ever draw,
By Inward Light, a deed in law?
Or could hold forth by Revelation, 495
An answer to a declaration?
For those that meddle with their tools.
Will cut their fingers, if they're fools:
And if you follow their advice,
In bills, and answers, and replies, 500
They'll write a love-letter in chancery,
Shall bring her upon oath to answer ye,
And soon reduce her t' be your wife,
Or make her weary of her life.
The Knight, who us'd with tricks and shifts 505
To edify by Ralpho's gifts,
But in appearance cried him down,[3]
To make them better seem his own,
All plagiaries' constant course
Of sinking when they take a purse,[4] 510
Resolv'd to follow his advice,
But kept it from him by disguise;
And, after stubborn contradiction,
To counterfeit his own conviction,
And, by transition, fall upon 515
The resolution as his own.
Quoth he, This gambol thou advisest
Is, of all others, the unwisest;
For, if I think by law to gain her,
There's nothing sillier nor vainer, 520
- ↑ When lawyers quarrel, they do not suffer the public to know it; for, whichever disputant might gain the advantage, the whole profession would suffer by the exposures made in the brawl.
- ↑ The accent is here laid on the last syllable of bigot.
- ↑ Var. cried them down in 1700 and subsequent editions.
- ↑ Meaning that the plagiary conceals his robbery with the dexterity of a pickpocket.
