JOHN BULL.--Why, truly, wife, it was not easily reconciled to the common methods; but then it was the fashion to do such things. I have read of your golden age, your silver age, etc.; one might justly call this the age of the 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 were at least two of everything; nay, o' 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; everybody 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, and calling for supper. In every house you might observe two Sosias quarrelling who was master. For my own part, I am still afraid of the same treatment: that I should find somebody behind my counter selling my broad-cloth. * Several Pretenders at that time. ** Kings of England. MRS. BULL.--There is a sort of fellows they call banterers and bamboozlers that play such tricks, but it seems these fellows were in earnest. JOHN BULL.--I begin to think that justice is a better rule than conveniency, for all some people make so slight on it. CHAPTER VII. Of the hard shifts Mrs. Bull was put to preserve the Manor of Bullock's Hatch, with Sir Roger's method to keep off importunate duns.* * Some attempts to destroy the public credit at that time. Manners of the Earl of Oxford.