discord; worse than any pollers by the highway side, auri accipitres, auri exterebronides, pecuniarum hamiolae, quadruplatores, curiae harpagones, fori tintinabula, monstra hominum, mangones, &c. that take upon them to make peace, but are indeed the very disturbers of our peace, a company of irreligious harpies, scraping, griping catchpoles, (I mean our common hungry pettifoggers, [504]rabulas forenses, love and honour in the meantime all good laws, and worthy lawyers, that are so many [505]oracles and pilots of a well-governed commonwealth). Without art, without judgment, that do more harm, as [506]Livy said, quam bella externa, fames, morbive, than sickness, wars, hunger, diseases; and cause a most incredible destruction of a commonwealth, saith [507]Sesellius, a famous civilian sometimes in Paris, as ivy doth by an oak, embrace it so long, until it hath got the heart out of it, so do they by such places they inhabit; no counsel at all, no justice, no speech to be had, nisi eum premulseris, he must be fed still, or else he is as mute as a fish, better open an oyster without a knife. Experto crede (saith [508] Salisburiensis) in manus eorum millies incidi, et Charon immitis qui nulli pepercit unquam, his longe clementior est; I speak out of experience, I have been a thousand times amongst them, and Charon himself is more gentle than they; [509]he is contented with his single pay, but they multiply still, they are never satisfied, besides they have damnificas linguas, as he terms it, nisi funibus argenteis vincias, they must be fed to say nothing, and [510]get more to hold their peace than we can to say our best. They will speak their clients fair, and invite them to their tables, but as he follows it, [511]of all injustice there is none so pernicious as that of theirs, which when they deceive most, will seem to be honest men. They take upon them to be peacemakers, et fovere causas humilium, to help them to their right, patrocinantur afflictis, [512]but all is for their own good, ut loculos pleniorom exhauriant, they plead for poor men gratis, but they are but as a stale to catch others. If there be no jar, [513]they can make a jar, out of the law itself find still some quirk or other, to set them at odds, and continue causes so long, lustra aliquot, I know not how many years before the cause is heard, and when 'tis judged and determined by reason of some tricks and errors, it is as fresh to begin, after twice seven years sometimes, as it was at first; and so they prolong time, delay suits till they have enriched themselves, and beggared their clients. And, as [514]Cato inveighed against Isocrates' scholars, we may justly tax our wrangling lawyers, they do consenescere in litibus, are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their client's causes hereafter, some of them in hell. [515] Simlerus complains amongst the Swissers of the advocates in his time, that when they should make an end, they began controversies, and