That nation that swarms with law and
lawyers, certainly abounds with vice and corruption. Where you find much
fowl resort, you may be sure there is no want of either water, mud, or
weeds.
"In the beginning of thriving states, when they are more industrious and
innocent, they have then the fewest laws. Rome itself had at first but
twelve tables. But after, how infinitely did their number of laws increase!
Old states, like old bodies will be sure to contract diseases. And where
the law-makers are many, the laws will never be few. That nation is in
best estate that hath the fewest laws, and those good. Variety does but
multiply snares. If every bush be limed, there is no bird can escape with
all his feathers free. And many times when the law did not intend it, men
are made guilty by the pleader's oratory; either to express his eloquence,
to advance his practice, or out of mastery to carry his cause: like a
garment pounced with dust, the business is so smeared and tangled that
without a Galilaeus his glass, you can never come to discern the spots of
this changeable moon.
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