The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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page 116 of 2094 (05%)
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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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