s and heaps of money. In troth I have told you, and
tell you again. Use your craft to lie at catch for the last wills of old
men: nor, if one or two cunning chaps escape by biting the bait off the
hook, either lay aside hope, or quit the art, though disappointed in
your aim. If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be
contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy
without heirs, should he be a rogue, who daringly takes the law of a
better man, be thou his advocate: despise the citizen, who is superior
in reputation, and [the justness of] his cause, if at home he has a son
or a fruitful wife. [Address him thus:] "Quintus, for instance, or
Publius (delicate ears delight in the prefixed name), your virtue has
made me your friend. I am acquainted with the precarious quirks of the
law; I can plead causes. Any one shall sooner snatch my eyes from me,
than he shall despise or defraud you of an empty nut. This is my care,
that you lose nothing, that you be not made a jest of." Bid him go home,
and make much of himself. Be his solicitor yourself: persevere, and be
steadfast: whether the glaring dog-star shall cleave the infant statues;
or Furius, destined with his greasy paunch, shall spue white snow over
the wintery Alps. Do not you see (shall someone say, jogging the person
that stands next to him by the elbow) how indefatigable he is, how
serviceable to his friends, how acute? [By this means] more tunnies
shall swim in, and your fish-ponds will increase.

Further, if any one in affluent circumstances has reared an ailing son,
lest a too open complaisance to a single man should detect you, creep
gradually into the hope [of succeeding him], and that you may be set
down as second heir; and, if any casualty ahould dispatch the boy to
Hades, you may come into the vacancy. This die seldom fails. Whoever
delivers his will to you to read, be mindful to decline it, and push the
parchment from you: [do it] however in such a manner, that you may catch
with an oblique glance, what the first page intimates to be in the
second clause: run over with a quick eye, whether you are sole heir, or
co-heir with many. Sometimes a well-seasoned lawyer, risen from a
Quinquevir, shall delude the gaping raven; and the fortune-hunter Nasica
shall be laughed at by Coranus.

What, art thou in a [prophetic] raving; or dost thou play upon me
designedly, by uttering obscurities? O son of Laertes, whatever I shall
s