In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of
it, driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all
their might and main, the wrong way!——kicking it _out_ of the great
doors, instead of, _in_——and with such fury in their looks, and such a
degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had
been originally made for the peace and preservation of
mankind:——perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still——a
litigated point fairly hung up;——for instance, Whether _John o’Nokes_
his nose could stand in _Tom o’Stiles_ his face, without a trespass, or
not—rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with
the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might
have taken up as many months——and if carried on upon a military plan,
as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems
practicable therein,——such as feints,—forced
marches,—surprizes—ambuscades—mask-batteries, and a thousand other
strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on
both sides——might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding
food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.
As for the Clergy——No——if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.——I
have no desire; and besides, if I had—I durst not for my soul touch
upon the subject——with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the
condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth,
to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account—and
therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as
fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to
clear up——and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least
_wit_ are reported to be men of most _judgment._——But mark—I say,
_reported to be_—for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and
which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to
be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.
This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope
already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall
forthwith make appear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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