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.