A masterful portrait of an attorney from Book 1 of Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book (1124-1161), this being the public defender for the man (and colleagues) accursed of murdering his wife. The notes are adapted from v.7 of the Oxford edition.
One lawyer shall admit us to behold
The manner of the making out a case,
First fashion of a speech; the chick in egg,
The masterpiece law’s bosom incubates.
How Don Giacinto of the Arcangeli,
Called Procurator of the Poor at Rome,
Now advocate for Guido and his mates,—
The jolly learned man of middle age,
Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law,
Mirthful as mighty, yet, as great hearts use,
Despite the name and fame that tempt our flesh,
Constant to that devotion of the hearth,
Still captive in those dear domestic ties!—
How he,—having a cause to triumph with,
All kind of interests to keep intact,
More than one efficacious* personage
To tranquillize, conciliate and secure,
And above all, public anxiety
To quiet, show its Guido in good hands,—
Also, as if such burdens were too light,
A certain family-feast to claim his care,
The birthday-banquet for the only son—
Paternity at smiling strife with law—
How he brings both to buckle in one bond;
And, thick at throat, with waterish under-eye,
Turns to his task and settles in his seat
And puts his utmost means in practice now:
Wheezes out law-phrase, whiffles** Latin forth,
And, just as though roast lamb would never be,
Makes logic levigate*** the big crime small:
Rubs palm on palm, rakes foot with itchy foot,
Conceives and inchoates**** the argument,
Sprinkling each flower appropriate to the time,
—Ovidian quip or Ciceronian crank,
A-bubble in the larynx while he laughs,
As he had fritters deep down frying there.
How he turns, twists, and tries the oily thing
Shall be—first speech for Guido ‘gainst the Fisc.
* – A Browning-ism – as ‘influential’
** – speaks in a whistling, breathy way. The description makes great play with Arcangeli being fat and rheumy.
*** – break down (into fragments), rub or grind (to a fine powder) from Med. L levigabilis
**** – begins, commences, from L. incohare or inchoare. This self-consciously Latinate word, like ‘levigate‘ before, is a comic suggestion of Arcangeli’s obsession with Latinity and his rhetorical pomp. OED records uses by Donne and Henry More, two of Browning’s favourite writers.
Extracts 