not be searched into by the buyer--this was called _garbling_; and the
garbler having viewed the goods, and caused all damaged or unsound goods
to be taken out, set his seal upon the case or bags which held the rest,
and then they were vouched to be marketable, so that when the merchant
and the shopkeeper met to deal, there was no room for any words about
the goodness of the wares; there was the garbler's seal to vouch that
they were marketable and good, and if they were otherwise, the garbler
was answerable.

This respected some particular sorts of goods only, and chiefly spices
and drugs, and dye-stuffs, and the like. It were well if some other
method than that of a rattling tongue could be found out, to ascertain
the goodness and value of goods between the shopkeeper and the retail
buyer, that such a flux of falsehoods and untruths might be avoided, as
we see every day made use of to run up and run down every thing that is
bought or sold, and that without any effect too; for, take it one time
with another, all the shopkeeper's lying does not make the buyer like
the goods at all the better, nor does the buyer's lying make the
shopkeeper sell the cheaper.

It would be worth while to consider a little the language that passes
between the tradesman and his customer over the counter, and put it
into plain homespun English, as the meaning of it really imports. We
would not take that usage if it were put into plain words--it would set
all the shopkeepers and their customers together by the ears, and we
should have fighting and quarrelling, instead of bowing and curtseying,
in every shop. Let us hark a little, and hear how it would sound between
them. A lady comes into a mercer's shop to buy some silks, or to the
laceman's to buy silver laces, or the like; and when she pitches upon a
piece which she likes, she begins thus: