emasculated extracts from a discreet Family
Shakspeare. Indignation ever speaks in short sharp queries; and it is
well for the printer's pocket that the self-experience hereof was
considered inadmissible, for a new fount of notes of interrogation must
have been procured: as it is, we are sailing quietly on the Didactic
Ocean, and have, I fear, been engaged some time upon topics actionable
on a charge of _scandalum magnatum_. Hereof then just a little sample:
let us call it '_A Judgment in the Rolls Court_;' or in any other; I
care not.

Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides
As great Authority, not Reason, guides.
"'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say
Faults can be mended at this time of day,
For Coke himself declared--no matter what--
Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not?
And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan,
Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man:
I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just,
My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must;
That _very_ learned Lord could not be wrong.
Besides, in fact, it has been settled long,
For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy
Decided--(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy),
That [black was white];--and so, what can I say?
Landmarks are things must not be moved away:
I cannot put the clock of Wisdom back,
And solemnly pronounce that black _is_ black.
Though plaintiff has the right, I grant it clear,
I must be ruled by Hoax and Hitchcock here:
Equity follows, does not mend the laws:
Therefore declare, defendant gains the cause."

Then, as virtuously bound, Indignation interrogates sundry
ejaculations; or, if you like it better, ejaculates sundry
interrogations: as thus, take a brace:

If right and reason both combine in one,
Why, in God's name, should justice not be done?
If law be not a lie, and judgments jokes,
Why not _be just_, and cut adrift Lord Hoax?

After a vast deal more in this vein of literature--for you perceive my
present purpose is dissection in part of this ancient rhyme--we arrive
at a magnanimous--

No! Right shall have his own, put off no longer
By rule of Former, or by whim of Stronger;
Nor, because Jack goes tumbling down the hill,
Shall precedent create a tumbling Jill.
Public opinion soon shall change the scene,
And wash the Law's Augaean stable clean;
Sweep out the Temple, drive the sellers thence,
And lead, in novel triumph, Common Sense.

Verily, this is of