254 SPEECH ON TAKING 



resteth much in myself, and that is in my manner of 

 giving orders. For I have seen an affectation of 

 dispatch turn utterly to delay at length : for the 

 manner of it is to take the tale out of the counsellor 

 at the bar his mouth, and to give a cursory order, 

 nothing tending or conducing to the end of the 

 business. It makes me remember what I heard one 

 say of a judge that sat in chancery ; that he would 

 make forty orders in a morning out of the way, and 

 it was out of the way indeed ; for it was nothing to 

 the end of the business : and this is that which makes 

 sixty, eighty, an hundred orders in a cause, to and 

 fro, begetting one another ; and like Penelope s web, 

 doing and undoing, But I mean not to purchase the 

 praise of expeditive in that kind ; but as one that 

 have a feeling of my duty, and of the case of others. 

 My endeavour shall be to hear patiently, and to cast 

 my order into such a mould as may soonest bring 

 the subject to the end of his journey. 



As for delays that may concern others, first the 

 great abuse is, that if the plaintiff have got an in 

 junction to stay suits at the common law, then he 

 will spin out his cause at length. But by the grace 

 of God I will make injunctions but an hard pillow 

 to sleep on ; for if I find that he prosecutes not with 

 effect, he may perhaps, when he is awake, find 

 not only his injunction dissolved, but his cause 

 dismissed. 



There be other particular orders, I mean to take 

 for non prosecution or faint prosecution, wherewith I 



