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The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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parties plaintiff and defendant come to their Alfakins or chief judge, "and
at once without any farther appeals or pitiful delays, the cause is heard
and ended." Our forefathers, as [520]a worthy chorographer of ours
observes, had wont _pauculis cruculis aureis_, with a few golden crosses,
and lines in verse, make all conveyances, assurances. And such was the
candour and integrity of succeeding ages, that a deed (as I have oft seen)
to convey a whole manor, was _implicite_ contained in some twenty lines or
thereabouts; like that scede or _Sytala Laconica_, so much renowned of old
in all contracts, which [521]Tully so earnestly commends to Atticus,
Plutarch in his Lysander, Aristotle _polit._: Thucydides, _lib. 1_,
[522]Diodorus and Suidus approve and magnify, for that laconic brevity in
this kind; and well they might, for, according to [523]Tertullian, _certa
sunt paucis_, there is much more certainty in fewer words. And so was it of
old throughout: but now many skins of parchment will scarce serve turn; he
that buys and sells a house, must have a house full of writings, there be
so many circumstances, so many words, such tautological repetitions of all
particulars (to avoid cavillation they say); but we find by our woeful
experience, that to subtle wits it is a cause of much more contention and
variance, and scarce any conveyance so accurately penned by one, which
another will not find a crack in, or cavil at; if any one word be
misplaced, any little error, all is disannulled. That which is a law today,
is none tomorrow; that which is sound in one man's opinion, is most faulty
to another; that in conclusion, here is nothing amongst us but contention
and confusion, we bandy one against another. And that which long since
[524]Plutarch complained of them in Asia, may be verified in our times.
"These men here assembled, come not to sacrifice to their gods, to offer
Jupiter their first-fruits, or merriments to Bacchus; but an yearly disease
exasperating Asia hath brought them hither, to make an end of their
controversies and lawsuits." 'Tis _multitudo perdentium et pereuntium_, a
destructive rout that seek one another's ruin. Such most part are our
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