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To see so many lawyers, advocates, so many tribunals, so little justice; so many magistrates, so little care of common good; so many laws, yet never more disorders; tribunal litium segetem [the court a crop of lawsuits], the tribunal a labyrinth, so many thousand suits in one court sometimes, so violently followed! To see injustissimum saepe juri praesidentem, impium religioni, imperitissimum eruditioni, otiosissimum labori, monstrosum humanitati [the greatest wrongdoer often administering justice, the most impious in charge of religion, the most ignorant presiding over learning, the most idle over employment, and the most heartless over the distribution of charity]! To see a lamb executed, a wolf pronounce sentence, latro [a robber] arraigned, and fur [a thief] sit on the bench, the judge severely punish others, and do worse himself, eundem furtum facere et punire, rapinam plectere, quum sit ipse raptor [the same man commit the theft and punish it, punish robbery and be himself a robber]! Laws altered, misconstrued, interpreted pro and con, as the judge is made by friends, bribed, or otherwise affected as a nose of wax, good to-today, none to-morrow' or firm in his opinion, cast in his! Sentence prolonged, changed, ad arbitrium judicis [at the pleasure of the judge], still the same case, "one thrust out of his inheritance, another falsely put in by favour, false deeds or wills." Incisae leges negliguntur, laws are made and not kept; or if put in execution, they be some silly ones that are punished.
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Robert Burton (The Anatomy Of Melancholy: What It Is, With All The Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics And Several Cures Of It)