Template:Dsh special pleading quote

QUEEN: This covenant is well-drafted, though lengthy.
TRIAGO (bowing unctuously): The writer shall be deemed hereinbefore obliged.
HERCULIO: My liege and madam, to expostulate
What brevity should be, what clarity is —
Why “day” is business day, and “time” is closing time.
’Tis buried — lost — among the cluttered syntax of this deed.
QUEEN: ’Twas no compliment, good Herculio, rest assured.
A crafty phrase to propitiate that noisome clerk, no more.
HERCULIO: Madam, I do concur!
Since brevity is the soul of wit,
And boilerplate the crutch of wretched tedium
I will be brief, where noble Triago, for all his facility, cannot.
“Mad” call I it, for, to define true madness,
What is ’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
QUEEN: More matter with less art.
HERCULIO: Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he’s mad, ’tis true; ’tis true ’tis pity,
And pity ’tis ’tis true—a foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then, and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or, rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.