One Nail must be driven out with Another. _Bantering_ is only an old way
of _Fooling_, under a new Name; but the License of the Age has perhaps
given it more Credit in the World, in this Nation and Conjuncture then
ever it had. It is a Turn of Wit next to _Slight of Hand_; and the Play
of _Jest or Earnest_ is as arrant a _Jugglers_ Trick, as little _Hocus’s
Fast or Loose_. It is a stroke of Wit, Pleasant and Agreeable enough,
if it be kept within the Bounds of Sobriety, Candor and Respect: But
when it comes to Lash out once at a venture, into matters Holy as well
as Prophane; when it comes once I say to be Intemperate, Ill-Natur’d,
Sceptical, Scandalous and Bitter, ’tis a way of Conversation for a
_Merry-Andrew_ or a _Buffon_, rather then for a Man of Honour, or of
Common Sense. It is not one jot better then Boys Play, when they cry,
_I made ’em Believe so_; and that’s the very Point at last that they
drive at. _The Rats have Eat your Copper_, says the _Trustee_ here to the
Merchant. What was there more in this, then to try whether the Merchant
was a Fool or not, and so to Couzen him if he had found him one? Nay, and
to make him a Fool upon Record too by his own Confession, both in one.
Now if he had but put a Dammee to the Truth on’t, according to the Modish
Humour of the Times, some Soft-headed, Conscientious Fop might have
Swallow’d it perhaps; but the Merchant very Dextrously turn’d the Conceit
upon him, and sav’d his Copper and his Credit both at once.