Chương Chương 133 · How Bridlegoose relateth the

Chapter 3.XLI.

How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties at

variance in matters of law.

I remember to the same purpose, quoth Bridlegoose, in continuing his

discourse, that in the time when at Poictiers I was a student of law under

Brocadium Juris, there was at Semerve one Peter Dandin, a very honest man,

careful labourer of the ground, fine singer in a church-desk, of good

repute and credit, and older than the most aged of all your worships; who

was wont to say that he had seen the great and goodly good man, the Council

of Lateran, with his wide and broad-brimmed red hat. As also, that he had

beheld and looked upon the fair and beautiful Pragmatical Sanction his

wife, with her huge rosary or patenotrian chaplet of jet-beads hanging at a

large sky-coloured ribbon. This honest man compounded, atoned, and agreed

more differences, controversies, and variances at law than had been

determined, voided, and finished during his time in the whole palace of

Poictiers, in the auditory of Montmorillon, and in the town-house of the

old Partenay. This amicable disposition of his rendered him venerable and

of great estimation, sway, power, and authority throughout all the

neighbouring places of Chauvigny, Nouaille, Leguge, Vivonne, Mezeaux,

Estables, and other bordering and circumjacent towns, villages, and

hamlets. All their debates were pacified by him; he put an end to their

brabbling suits at law and wrangling differences. By his advice and

counsels were accords and reconcilements no less firmly made than if the

verdict of a sovereign judge had been interposed therein, although, in very

deed, he was no judge at all, but a right honest man, as you may well

conceive,--arg. in l. sed si unius. ff. de jure-jur. et de verbis

obligatoriis l.continuus. There was not a hog killed within three parishes

of him whereof he had not some part of the haslet and puddings. He was

almost every day invited either to a marriage banquet, christening feast,

an uprising or women-churching treatment, a birthday’s anniversary

solemnity, a merry frolic gossiping, or otherwise to some delicious

entertainment in a tavern, to make some accord and agreement between

persons at odds and in debate with one another. Remark what I say; for he

never yet settled and compounded a difference betwixt any two at variance,

but he straight made the parties agreed and pacified to drink together as a

sure and infallible token and symbol of a perfect and completely

well-cemented reconciliation, sign of a sound and sincere amity and proper

mark of a new joy and gladness to follow thereupon,--Ut not. per (Doct.) ff.

de peric. et com. rei vend. l. 1. He had a son, whose name was Tenot

Dandin, a lusty, young, sturdy, frisking roister, so help me God! who

likewise, in imitation of his peace-making father, would have undertaken and

meddled with the making up of variances and deciding of controversies

betwixt disagreeing and contentious party-pleaders; as you know,

Saepe solet similis esse patri.

Et sequitur leviter filia matris iter.

Ut ait gloss. 6, quaest. 1. c. Si quis. gloss. de cons. dist. 5. c. 2. fin.

et est. not. per Doct. cod. de impub. et aliis substit. l. ult. et l.

legitime. ff. de stat. hom. gloss. in l. quod si nolit. ff. de aedil.

edict. l. quisquis c. ad leg. Jul. Majest. Excipio filios a Moniali

susceptos ex Monacho. per glos. in c. impudicas. 27. quaestione. 1. And

such was his confidence to have no worse success than his father, he

assumed unto himself the title of Law-strife-settler. He was likewise in

these pacificatory negotiations so active and vigilant--for, Vigilantibus

jura subveniunt. ex l. pupillus. ff. quae in fraud. cred. et ibid. l. non

enim. et instit. in prooem.--that when he had smelt, heard, and fully

understood--ut ff.si quando paup. fec. l. Agaso. gloss. in verb. olfecit,

id est, nasum ad culum posuit--and found that there was anywhere in the

country a debatable matter at law, he would incontinently thrust in his

advice, and so forwardly intrude his opinion in the business, that he made

no bones of making offer, and taking upon him to decide it, how difficult

soever it might happen to be, to the full contentment and satisfaction of

both parties. It is written, Qui non laborat non manducat; and the said

gl. ff. de damn. infect. l. quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulam

compellit egestas. gloss. ff. de lib. agnosc. l. si quis. pro qua facit. l.

si plures. c. de cond. incert. But so hugely great was his misfortune in

this his undertaking, that he never composed any difference, how little

soever you may imagine it might have been, but that, instead of reconciling

the parties at odds, he did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to a

higher point of dissension and enmity than ever they were at before. Your

worships know, I doubt not, that,

Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis.

Gl. ff. de alien. jud. mut. caus. fa. lib.2. This administered unto the

tavern-keepers, wine-drawers, and vintners of Semerve an occasion to say,

that under him they had not in the space of a whole year so much

reconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine of

Leguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour’s time. It

happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereof

to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatory

enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backward

inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverently

upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been so

wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame,

and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired the

honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, and

irrevocably as he had done. In doing whereof Tenot did heinously

transgress against the law which prohibiteth children to reproach the

actions of their parents; per gl. et Bart. l. 3. paragr. si quis. ff. de

cond. ob caus. et authent. de nupt. par. sed quod sancitum. col. 4. To

this the honest old father answered thus: My son Dandin, when Don Oportet

taketh place, this is the course which we must trace, gl. c. de appell. l.

eos etiam. For the road that you went upon was not the way to the fuller’s

mill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found wherein the hare did

sit. Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling and composing

differences. Why? Because thou takest them at the beginning, in the very

infancy and bud as it were, when they are green, raw, and indigestible.

Yet I know handsomely and featly how to compose and settle them all. Why?

Because I take them at their decadence, in their weaning, and when they are

pretty well digested. So saith Gloss:

Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus.

L. non moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip. Didst thou ever hear

the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the

declension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a crisis is then

upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although the

physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, though

nature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm and praise thereof. My

pleaders, after the same manner, before I did interpose my judgment in the

reconciling of them, were waxing faint in their contestations. Their

altercation heat was much abated, and, in declining from their former

strife, they of themselves inclined to a firm accommodation of their

differences; because there wanted fuel to that fire of burning rancour and

despiteful wrangling whereof the lower sort of lawyers were the kindlers.

That is to say, their purses were emptied of coin, they had not a win in

their fob, nor penny in their bag, wherewith to solicit and present their

actions.

Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia.

There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of a

paranymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his part

dexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement,

for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful and

pernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation when it

should have been said that he was the first who yielded and spoke of a

reconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good, and being

sensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to break the ice, and

make the greater haste to prepare the way for a condescendment to an

amicable and friendly treaty. Then was it that I came in pudding time,

Dandin, my son, nor is the fat of bacon more relishing to boiled peas than

was my verdict then agreeable to them. This was my luck, my profit, and

good fortune. I tell thee, my jolly son Dandin, that by this rule and

method I could settle a firm peace, or at least clap up a cessation of arms

and truce for many years to come, betwixt the Great King and the Venetian

State, the Emperor and the Cantons of Switzerland, the English and the

Scots, and betwixt the Pope and the Ferrarians. Shall I go yet further?

Yea, as I would have God to help me, betwixt the Turk and the Sophy, the

Tartars and the Muscoviters. Remark well what I am to say unto thee. I

would take them at that very instant nick of time when both those of the

one and the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when they

had voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure and

coin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold and

mortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally wasted, spent,

and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and victuals that were

necessary for the continuance of a military expedition. There I am sure,

by God, or by his Mother, that, would they, would they not, in spite of all

their teeths, they should be forced to have a little respite and breathing

time to moderate the fury and cruel rage of their ambitious aims. This is

the doctrine in Gl. 37. d. c. si quando.

Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.