A PASSAGE IN PROCOPIUS IMPROVED. A STORY CONCERNING URIM AND THUMMIM;
AND THE ELDER DANIEL'S OPINION OF THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW.
Here is Domine Picklock
My man of Law, sollicits all my causes,
Follows my business, makes and compounds my quarrels
Between my tenants and me; sows all my strifes
And reaps them too, troubles the country for me,
And vexes any neighbour that I please.
BEN JONSON.
Among the people who were converted to the Christian faith during the
sixth century were two tribes or nations called the Lazi and the Zani.
Methinks it had been better if they had been left unconverted; for
they have multiplied prodigiously among us, so that between the Lazy
Christians and the Zany ones, Christianity has grievously suffered.
It was one of the Zany tribe whom Guy once heard explaining to his
congregation what was meant by Urim and Thummim, and in technical
phrase _improving_ the text. Urim and Thummim, he said, were two
precious stones, or rather stones above all price, the Hebrew names of
which have been interpreted to signify Light and Perfection, or
Doctrine and Judgement, (which Luther prefers in his Bible, and in
which some of the northern versions, have followed him) or the Shining
and the Perfect, or Manifestation and Truth, the words in the original
being capable of any or all of these significations. They were set in
the High Priest's breast-plate of judgement; and when he consulted
them upon any special occasion to discover the will of God, they
displayed an extraordinary brilliancy if the matter which was referred
to this trial were pleasing to the Lord Jehovah, but they gave no
lustre if it were disapproved. “My Brethren,” said the Preacher, “this
is what learned Expositors, Jewish and Christian, tell me concerning
these two precious stones. The stones themselves are lost. But, my
Christian Brethren, we need them not, for we have a surer means of
consulting and discovering the will of God; and still it is by Urim
and Thummim if we alter only a single letter in one of those
mysterious words. Take your Bible, my brethren; _use him and thumb
him—use him and thumb him well_, and you will discover the will of God
as surely as ever the High Priest did by the stones in his breast
plate!”
What Daniel saw of the Lazi, and what he heard of the Zani, prevented
him from ever forming a wish to educate his son for a North country
cure, which would have been all the preferment that lay within his
view. And yet if any person to whose judgement he deferred had
reminded him that Bishop Latimer had risen from as humble an origin,
it might have awakened in him a feeling of ambition for the boy, not
inconsistent with his own philosophy.
But no suggestions could ever have induced Daniel to chuse for him the
profession of the Law. The very name of Lawyer was to him a word of
evil acceptation. Montaigne has a pleasant story of a little boy who
when his mother had lost a lawsuit which he had always heard her speak
of as a perpetual cause of trouble, ran up to him in great glee to
tell him of the loss as a matter for congratulation and joy; the poor
child thought it was like losing a cough, or any other bodily ailment.
Daniel entertained the same sort of opinion concerning all legal
proceedings. He knew that laws were necessary evils; but he thought
they were much greater evils than there was any necessity that they
should be; and believing this to be occasioned by those who were
engaged in the trade of administering them, he looked upon lawyers as
the greatest pests in the country—
Because, their end being merely avarice,
Winds up their wits to such a nimble strain
As helps to blind the Judge, not give him eyes.[1]
He had once been in the Courts at Lancaster, having been called upon
as witness in a civil suit, and the manner in which he was cross
examined there by one of those “young spruce Lawyers,” whom Donne has
so happily characterized as being
———“all impudence and tongue”
had confirmed him in this prejudice. What he saw of the proceedings
that day induced him to agree with Beaumont and Fletcher, that
Justice was a Cheese-monger, a mere cheese-monger,
Weighed nothing to the world but mites and maggots
And a main stink; Law, like a horse-courser,
Her rules and precepts hung with gauds and ribbands,
And pampered up to cozen him that bought her,
When she herself was hackney, lame and founder'd.[2]
His was too simple and sincere an understanding to admire in any other
sense than that of wondering at them
Men of that large profession that can speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,
Till they are hoarse again, yet all be law!
That with most quick agility can turn
And re-return; can make knots and undo them,
Give forked counsel, take provoking gold
On either hand, and put it up. These men
He knew would thrive;—[3]
but far was he from wishing that a son of his should thrive by such a
perversion of his intellectual powers, and such a corruption of his
moral nature.
[Footnote 1: LORD BROOKE.]
[Footnote 2: WOMAN PLEASED.]
[Footnote 3: BEN JONSON.]
On the other hand he felt a degree of respect amounting almost to
reverence for the healing art, which is connected with so many
mysteries of art and nature. And therefore when an opportunity offered
of placing his son with a respectable practitioner, who he had every
reason for believing would behave toward him with careful and prudent
kindness, his entire approbation was given to the youth's own choice.