第235章

How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their perfect growth.

For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I temporize and apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to do, waiting patiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and perfection thereof in all its members, to wit, the writings and the bags. Arg. in l. si major. c. commun. divid. et de cons. di. I. c. solemnitates, et ibi gl.

A suit in law at its production, birth, and first beginning, seemeth to me, as unto your other worships, shapeless, without form or fashion, incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first coming into the world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is merely an inform, rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and would remain still so, if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection to her hopeful cub, did not with much licking put his members into that figure and shape which nature had provided for those of an arctic and ursinal kind; ut not. Doct. ff. ad l. Aquil. l. 3. in fin. Just so do I see, as your other worships do, processes and suits in law, at their first bringing forth, to be numberless, without shape, deformed, and disfigured, for that then they consist only of one or two writings, or copies of instruments, through which defect they appear unto me, as to your other worships, foul, loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts. But when there are heaps of these legiformal papers packed, piled, laid up together, impoked, insatchelled, and put up in bags, then is it that with a good reason we may term that suit, to which, as pieces, parcels, parts, portions, and members thereof, they do pertain and belong, well-formed and fashioned, big-limbed, strong-set, and in all and each of its dimensions most completely membered.

Because forma dat esse. rei. l. si is qui. ff. ad leg. Falcid. in c. cum dilecta. de rescript. Barbat. consil. 12. lib. 2, and before him, Baldus, in c. ult. extra. de consuet. et l. Julianus ad exhib. ff. et l. quaesitum. ff. de leg. 3. The manner is such as is set down in gl. p. quaest. I. c.

Paulus.

Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.

Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants, messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers, attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge delegates, arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors, jurors, searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners, clerks, pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit. est. l. 3. c., by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and licking at the purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot and engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks, bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and so forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; which parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the law pokes and bags, gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti. Qualis vestis erit, talia corda gerit.

Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders, litigants, and law-suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators of justice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff. commun. l. 3. extra. de celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. I. cap. Od. gl.

Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.

Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of a complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashioned according to the canonical gloss.

Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.

Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verbo Roma.

Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit.

Dantes custodit, non dantes spernit, et odit.

The reason whereof is thought to be this:

Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora. ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact. Nor is this all; for the inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.

Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.

In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition of the word process is purchase, viz. of good store of money to the lawyers, and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.

Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.

Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l. non epistolis. l. non nudis.

Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.

Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante crimine? Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose.