An unlearned and unworthily called a lawyer, is the figure of a
foot-post, who carries letters but knows not what is in them, only can
read the superscriptions to direct them to their right owners. So
trudgeth this simple clerk, that can scarce read a case when it is
written, with his handful of papers from one court to another, and from
one counsellor's chamber to another, when by his good payment for his
pains he will be so saucy as to call himself a solicitor. But what a
taking are poor clients in when this too much trusted cunning companion,
better read in Piers Plowman than in Plowden, and in the play of
"Richard the Third" than in the pleas of Edward the Fourth, persuades
them all is sure when he is sure of all! and in what a misery are the
poor men when upon a _Nihil dicit_, because indeed this poor fellow
_Nihil potest dicere_, they are in danger of an execution before they
know wherefore they are condemned. But I wish all such more wicked than
witty unlearned in the law and abusers of the same, to look a little
better into their consciences, and to leave their crafty courses, lest
when the law indeed lays them open, instead of carrying papers in their
hands, they wear not papers on their heads; and instead of giving ear to
their client's causes or rather eyes into their purses, they have never
an ear left to hear withal, nor good eye to see withal, or at least
honest face to look out withal; but as the grasshoppers of Egypt, be
counted the caterpillars of England, and not the fox that stole the
goose, but the great fox that stole the farm from the gander.