A Soliciter is a Pet [...]yfogging Sophister: one, whom by the same Figure that a North-Country Pedler is a Merchant-man, you may stile a Lawyer. List him an Attorney, and you smother Tom. I humb 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 Swines snout doth a Carbuncle; he is just such another Dunghil-Rampant. The silly Country-man (who seeing an Ape in a Scar­ [...]t Coat, blest his young Worship, and gave his Lordship joy) did not slander his Complement with worse application, than he th [...] [Page 2]names him a Law-giver. The Cook that served up a Rope in a Pye, (to continue the Frolick) might have wrap'd up such a Pet­tyfogger as this in his bill of Fare.

He is a Will-with-a-Wisp, a Wit whither thou woo't; Proteus has not more shapes, than he can perform Offices; he can instruct with the Counsellour, 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 shatter'd brain, like a crackt 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 Clyents with a Cudgel of cramp words, it would make a Dog break his Halter.

This jugling 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 Taylors, out-cast Brokers, drunken Coblers, or the off-springs of such like Rabble-rout.

He huggs the Papers, as the Devil hugg'd 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 lowsie Clyent 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 Bayliffs, 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 gal'd Horse, and whereas their ne plus ultra is ten groats, Mr. Soliciter forfooth, claims double Fees with Authori­ty; [Page 3]and if the Clyent prove so saucy to deny it, he will rage like Tom of bedlam, but if that will not prevail, he'l cast a squeezing look, like that of Vespatian, as if he were breeding over a Close­stool.

He is a kind of Cormorant, that fishes for others, but feeds himself; the misery is, he fishes without the Cormorants 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 Relique of a Mountebank, train'd up in Bartholomew-Fair; add to these a mortified Bank­rupt, and one that has scarce learnt 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 by-blow of some santastical Poetaster, who has had some in-sight 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 petty-fogging Soliciter.

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, then a Hog-herd is to preach a Sermon, or a Cinder vvench 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 Turkies, 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 [Page 4] Stygian Crocodile with his Iron Lungs, and brazen Face dares u­surp the Office of Attorney-ship (as I hinted before) and no sooner hears of a puny Lad that is carved out for a Clerious, but strait 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 Pater-Noster He is so expert at co [...]xing Magick, that he has a sp [...]ll for every degree and Quality, he complements Gentility, he flatters. Nobili­ty, and strews a whole sackfull of spungy Rhetorick 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 stigmat [...]zed with his tripple 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 cryes Exit, away he must hie to his snake-hair'd 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 sence) an Anthentick Gypsi [...], thet nips your bung with a canting Engine: and more then that he scorns to cheat you in hugger- [...]ugger, but will not fail to do it before your Face: He is like the Man that tryed any tooth good Barber, rather then stand out for a Wrangler, if he can pump no chink out of you, he will manage your cause for a break-fast, being a notable Artist at spunging; Oh! he's a terrible slaughter man at a Thanksgiving Dinner.

He out-dives a Bayliff in all his cheating faculties, and I know none out-strips him, except his Infernal Grandfather.

In fine, he is the Yeomans Horsleech, the Gentlemans Rubbing­brush, and the Courtiers quid pro quo. He is the summum bonu [...]: of Knavery, in Judgement a meer Pigmy, in shew the Beard of a Demi-blazing-star: to be brief, he is like a Lamp without Oyl, a Trumpet without a sound, a smoak 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 Eleph [...]nt, 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-tyed 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 kick'd up and down [...]ke a Foot-ball to keep the Devils in action.