Chapter 3

Is this advocacy, Cinna, this a type of lawyers' powers, This immense oration, Cinna, some nine words in some ten hours? Waterclocks I grant you asked for, Cinna, yes, you called for four; There you stopped, such wealth of silence, Cinna, ne'er was seen before.

_Martial_, viii. 7.

THE COURT OF REASON

A thousand doubts and pleadings in a day Are filed in Empress Reason's court supreme By angry Love--his eyes with anger gleam. "Which of us twain hath been more faithful, say. 'Tis all through me that Cino can display The sail of fame on life's unhappy stream." "Thee," quoth I, "root of all my woe I deem, I found what gall beneath thy sweetness lay." Then he: "Ah, traitorous and truant slave! Are these the thanks thou renderest, ingrate, For giving thee a maid without a peer?" "Thy left," cried I, "slew what thy right hand gave." "Not so," said he. The judge, "Your wrath abate. I must have time to give true judgment here."

_Cino da Pistoia._

[Imitated by Petrarch in the conclusion of the Canzone, _Quell' antico mio dolce empio signore_.]

TO ROME

Tell me, proud Rome, why dost these edicts read, These many laws by prince or people made, Or answers by the prudent duly weighed, When now thou canst the world no longer lead? Thou readest, sad one, of each ancient deed Where thy unconquered sons their might displayed, Afric and Egypt at thy feet were laid, But slavery, not rule, is now thy meed. What boots it that thou wast of old a queen, And over foreign nations heldest rein, If thou and all thy fame no more exist? Forgive me, God, if all my days have been Devoted to man's laws, unjust and vain Unless Thy law within the heart be fixed.

_Cino da Pistoia._

JUSTICE

Ah! justice is a virtue bepraised and full of worth, It castigates the sinner, and peoples all the earth, And kings with care should guard it--instead they now forget The gem that is most precious in all the coronet. Some think they may do justice by cruelty, I wist; But 'tis an evil counsel, for justice must consist In showing deeds of mercy, in knowledge of the truth, And executing judgment it executes with ruth.

_Pedro Lopez de Ayala._

THE POET AND THE ADVOCATE

Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought, We owe to honour all, to fortune nought; The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay Peruvian gold, but seeks the wreath of bay. How is the advocate the poet's peer? The poet's glory is complete and clear; He far outlives the advocate's renown, Patru is e'en by Scarron's name weighed down. The bar of Greece and Rome you point me out, A bar that trained great men, I do not doubt, For then chicane with language void of sense Had not deformed the law and eloquence. Purge the tribune of all this monstrous growth, I mount it, and my soul will sink, though loth, Will yield to fortune and will speak in prose. But since reform in this so slowly grows, Leave me my tastes, for I aspire to be By verse ennobled to posterity, To hold first place in arts above the law, More grave and noble than it ever saw. Fraud in this age of ours unpunished can Tread down the equity so dear to man. Can you for spirits just and generous find A fairer cause to plead before mankind? Mother or stepmother let Fortune be, The theatre and not the bar for me; For client virtue, truth for counsel's wage; For judge the present and the coming age.

_Piron_, _La Métromanie_, Act iii. Sc. 7.

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.