THE CHARACTER OF A SOLICITOR. Or the Tricks and Quillets of a Pettyfogger.  
With his manifold Knaveries, Cheats, Extortions, and other Villainies.  
LONDON, Printed for K.C.I.F. 1675.   

THE Character OF A SOLICITOR.  
A Solicitor is a Pet●yfogging Sophister: one, whom by the same Figure that a North-Country Pedlar is a Merchantman, you may style a Lawyer. List him an Attorney, and you smother Tom. I humh in a pudding. The very name of a Strivener outreaches him, and he is swallowed up in the praise, like Sir Hudibras in a great saddle, nothing to be seen but the giddy Feathers in his Crown.  
Some say he's a Gentleman, but he becomes the Epithet as a Swine's snout doth a Carbuncle; he is just such another Dunghil-Rampant. The silly Countryman (who seeing an Ape in a Scar●●t Coat, blest his young Worship, and gave his Lordship joy) did not slander his Compliment with worse application, than he th●● names him a Lawgiver. The Cook that served up a Rope in a Pie, (to continue the Frolic) might have wrapped up such a Pettyfogger as this in his bill of Fare.  
He is a Will-with-a-Wisp, a Wit whither thou wilt; Proteus has not more shapes, than he can perform Offices; he can instruct with the Counsellor, Plead as an Attorney, he has all the tricks and quillets of an Informer, nay, and a Bum too for a need: in a word, he is a Jack of all Trades, and his shattered brain, like a cracked Looking-glass, represents a thousand fancies. He calls himself Esquire of the Quill; but to see how he tugs at his pen, and belaboureth his half amazed Clients with a Cudgel of cramp words, it would make a Dog break his Halter.  
This juggling Skip Jack, having lately been put to his last shift; has metamorphosed a Needle into a Goose-Feather, and the sole of an old shoe, into a sheet of Paper, for the best of his profession have been forlorn Tailors, out-cast Brokers, drunken Cobblers, or the offsprings of such like Rabble-rout.  
He hugs the Papers, as the Devil hugged the Witch; for they are an advancement of his Science, these frisk about him like a swarm of Bees; yet he is a Man of vast practice if he has but half a score of 'um. If his lousy Client chance to recover an old Rotten Barn, or a Weather-beaten Cottage, he will be sure to have two third parts for a quantum mervit.  
He is Lord Paramount among the shifting Bailiffs, and a sworn brother to the Marshals-men, and is behind none of them at the extortive faculty, having the confidence to demand, Item, for his pains and labour, when all the while he does nothing but hover over a Quart-pot. He is as offensive to the Attorneys, as Flies are to a galled Horse, and whereas their ne plus ultra is ten groats, Mr. Solicitor forsooth, claims double Fees with Authority; and if the Client prove so saucy to deny it, he will rage's like Tom of bedlam, but if that will not prevail, he'll cast a squeezing look, like that of Vespasian, as if he were breeding over a Close-stool.  
He is a kind of Cormorant, that fishes for others, but feeds himself; the misery is, he fishes without the Cormorant's property, a Rope to strengthen the Gullet, and make him disgorge. I care not much if I untwist my pettyfogging Gentleman, and give him the Receipt of this grand Catholicon.  
Take a notorious Vagabond, one that for his good behaviour hath paid the excise of his Ears, and so fled his Country like a Runnagado Jew; next the spurious Relic of a Mountebank, trained up in Bartholomew-Fair; add to these a mortified Bankrupt, and one that has scarce learned his Abcedary: These with one that had a small Knock in the Cradle, and been fed with the Excrements of the Man in the Moon, together with the byblow of some santastical Poetaster, who has had some insight in a Scotch sieve full of ballads and merry beuks. These are the simples of this weedy compound (a kind of vafrous Hotch potch) a pettifogging Solicitor.  
In the Society of true and genuine Lawyers, he is like an Owl among so many Lapwings, and is no more fit to converse with them, than a Hog-herd is to preach a Sermon, or a Cinder wench to wait upon a Countess.  
Never did the Fox play the Craft with the Geese, as this alamode upstart gulls the Country bumpkins: so that the insinuated boobies have no more Wit than to prog his guts with Turkeys, Geese, pullets, Chines of bacon, et caetera, as if he were to be fatted for a beelzebian sacrifice, whilst their wives and children lead the lives of half starved pythagoreans. But this is not all; this Stygian Crocodile with his Iron Lungs, and brazen Face dares usurp the Office of Attorney-ship (as I hinted before) and not sooner hears of a puny Lad that is carved out for a Clerious, but straight he yelps and yawns till he has him in his Clutches, and for a small sum of Money got at the Plough tail, will undertake to make him a Barrister, though he can scarce read his Paternoster He is so expert at coaxing Magic, that he has a sp●ll for every degree and Quality, he compliments Gentility, he flatters. Nobility, and strews a whole sackful of spongy Rhetoric among the vulgar; the one hugs him, the other plays at Noddy, and a third sort admires him, and well they may, since he has not his equal in the whole Goaldom of Ludgate.  
This very name deciphers his practice, solus citat, he alone is able to set a Town by the Ears, and that is a trick of the Devil, but no body doubts him to be of the cloven-hearted tribe, whom Old Nick has stigmatised with his triple claw; nor do ●●e doubt his Commission to play his Pranks at random while he is hate on Earth, for as soon as my Lady Atropos cries Exit, away he must high to his snake-haired Grandam Meg●●rn, and needs 〈…〉 go, since the Devil drive him.  
He writes a Bill of cost in such worm eaten characters, that 'tis past the skill of a Rosie-crucian to discover the Apo●aliptical meaning; yet for all that, he will not abate you an ace of the sun●ma totalis, and that to be sure shall be plain enough● wherefore he may very fitly be câiled the Inquisition of the Purse● or (in a plainer sense) an Anthentick Gypsi●, thet nips your bung with a canting Engine: and more than that he scorns to cheat you in hugger-mugger, but will not fail to do it before your Face: He is like the Man that tried any tooth good Barber, rather than stand out for a Wrangler, if he can pump no chink out of you, he will manage your cause for a breakfast, being a notable Artist at spunging; Oh! he's a terrible slaughter man at a Thanksgiving Dinner.  
He out-dives a Bailiff in all his cheating faculties, and I know none outstrips him, except his Infernal Grandfather.  
In fine, he is the Yeoman's Horseleech, the Gentleman's Rubbing-brush, and the Courtiers quid pro quo. He is the summum bonu●: of Knavery, in Judgement a mere Pigmy, in show the Beard of a Demi-blazing-star: to be brief, he is like a Lamp without Oil, a Trumpet without a sound, a smoke without Fire, a Fiddle out of tune, or a bell without a clapper; and differs from a Lawyer as a shrimp doth from a Lebster, a Frog from an Elephant, or a 〈◊〉 from an Eagle.  
But once more to single out my Quacking cause-splitter, his Fate (for I know you would fain see an end of him) is either a whipping Andit, when he is tongue-tied by a Learned thong of severe Examinations: or else he meets his passing-peal in a clamorous mutiny of Tyburnian spectators, or (if he pass muster with ●hese) his assured Destiny being dead, is to be kicked up and down ●ke a Football to keep the Devils in action.  
FINIS.