Six weeks or more in idle feasting spent, The depositions then to town are sent, Seal’d, and entrusted to a faithful guard, Who will demand a guinea for reward. The cause set down and publication pass, Then seek of evidence the copied mass. Peruse it well with all your cunning’s stress;-- A trifling error will the whole suppress.[28] Then may the genial board again be spread, And hungry friends at hostile cost be fed. What! not a fault? has right at last prevail’d And Agar’s genius in it’s zenith fail’d? Did Spence so well th’ interrogations draw That ingenuity can find no flaw? No leading question fatal to the whole? No jurat faulty--not too scrawl’d the roll? Examine all around the parchment skin And find a part, in which it seems too thin. Are all the words in orthographic dress? No chance omission of the letter “s” That letter, lately in a jurat missed, Implied an oath on one “Evangelist” Instead of four--on which unlucky grounds The plaintiff lost a sum of eighty pounds. What; from sworn clerks, to break their fealty hir’d, Has nothing secret ere it’s time transpired? Has no false wretch in shame at last reveal’d A truth his wilful tongue at first conceal’d? Then foul Procrastication hide thy face;-- ’Tis something gain’d if causes keep their place; As some weak foe against a stronger lance May still withstand, though failing to advance. Meanwhile the parties die away like martyrs, Felo de se--shot--drown’d--or hung in garters-- A motley crew, who haunt the court in crowds, And scream for justice from their tatter’d shrouds;-- Not rent by worms, for they would scorn to knaw The wretched victim of a suit at law,-- Would turn with pity from the mould’ring frame, And give to nobler animals the shame. No, in each tattered shroud behold the sack Some parish gave when law had stripp’d the back, Had stripp’d it bare as on the day of birth, And, but for this, had sent it bare to earth. Repose, my muse; and listen to the groans. Let weary lawyers rest awhile their bones. Nature demands when mortals cease to live, That nought should move until the corpse revive. Just so in law all motion is represt, When dies a wretch who had some interest, No matter what--’tis clear that the survivor Can take no step without a due revivor.[29]