Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/212

206 golden age, your silver age, &c. one might justly call this the age of lawyers. There was hardly a man of substance in all the country, but had a counterfeit that pretended to his estate. As the philosophers say, that there is a duplicate of every terrestrial animal at sea, so it was in this age of the lawyers, there was at least two of every thing; nay, on my conscience, I think there were three esquire Hackums at one time. In short, it was usual for a parcel of fellows to meet, and dispose of the whole estates in the country: "This lies convenient for me, Tom: thou wouldst do more good with that, Dick, than the old fellow that has it." So to law they went with the true owners; the lawyers got well by it; every body else was undone. It was a common thing for an honest man, when he came home at night, to find another fellow domineering in his family, hectoring his servants, calling for supper, and pretending to go to bed to his wife. In every house you might observe two Sosias quarrelling who was master. For my own part, I am still afraid of the same treatment, and that I should find somebody behind my counter, selling my broad cloth.

Mrs. B. There is a sort of fellows, they call banterers and bamboozlers, that play such tricks; but it seems these fellows were in earnest.

J. B. I begin to think, that justice is a better rule than conveniency, for all some people make so slight of it.