images in the Temple
Church that lie cross-legged do much resemble him, saving that this is a
little more cross. He wears a forfeited bond under that part of his
girdle where his thumb sticks, with as much pride as a Welshman does a
leek on St. David's Day, and quarrels more and longer about it. He is a
catchpole's morning's draught, for the news that such a gallant has come
yesternight to town, draws out of him both muscadel and money too. He
says the Lord's Prayer backwards, or, to speak better of him, he hath a
Paternoster by himself, and that particle, Forgive us our debts, as we
forgive others, &c., he either quite leaves out, or else leaps over it.
It is a dangerous rub in the alley of his conscience. He is the
bloodhound of the law, and hunts counter, very swiftly and with great
judgment. He hath a quick scent to smell out his game, and a good deep
mouth to pursue it, yet never opens till he bites, and bites not till he
kills, or at least draws blood, and then he pincheth most doggedly. He
is a lawyer's mule, and the only beast upon which he ambles so often to
Westminster. And a lawyer is his God Almighty, in him only he trusts. To
him he flies in all his troubles; from him he seeks succour. To him he
prays, that he may by his means overcome his enemies. Him does he
worship both in the temple and abroad, and hopes by him and good angels
to prosper in all his actions. A scrivener is his farrier, and helps to
recover all his diseased and maimed obligations. Every term he sets up a
tenters in Westminster Hall, upon which he racks and stretches gentlemen
like English broadcloth, beyond the staple of the wool, till the threads
crack, and that causeth them with the least wet to shrink, and presently
to wear bars. Marry, he handles a citizen (at least if himself be one)
like a piece of Spanish cloth, gives him only a twitch, and strains him
not too hard, knowing how apt he is to break of himself, and then he can
cut nothing out of him but threads. To the one he comes like Tamburlain,
with his black and bloody flag; but to the other his white one hangs
out, and, upon the parley, rather than fail, he takes ten groats in the
pound for his ransom, and so lets him march away with bag and baggage.
From the beginning of Hilary to the end of Michaelmas his purse is full
of quicksilver, and that sets him running from sunrise to sunset up
Fleet Street, and so to the Chancery, from thence to Westminster, then
back to one court, afte