portion to the rent, in the sixteenth as in the eighteenth century. The price of meat was from 10d. to 1 sd. a score. The value of a score of meat therefore, at an average, was more than equal to the rent of an acre of land in the former century, whereas that of two score is not equal to it in the latter.

(Hops and Vegetables.) The use and cultivation of hops are said to have been introduced in the beginning of this century. Sallads and eatable roots were planted here about this time, likewise."

(Liquors.)--In 1504 red wine was sold at 41. a tun. Claret at 31. 13s. 4d. White wine 31. 6s. 8d. Ale of London l. 10s.: of Canterbury 11. 5s.

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(Arts, Manners, &c.)—Hume in his reflections on the reign of Henry the Second, says, "that as the king and all the barons were of "French extraction, the manners of that people gained an ascendant and were regarded as models of imitation."-The English nation do not, however, appear, at this period, to have derived any essential improvement or taste for the elegancies of life from an imitation of their more polished neighbours. Holinshed, who lived in queen Elizabeth's time, says that in the preceding age "there scarcely was a chimney to the houses, even in considerable towns: the fire was kindled by the wall, and the "smoke sought its way out at the roof, or door, or windows. The houses

were nothing but wattling plastered over with clay. The people slept "on straw pallets, and had a good round log under their head, for a pillow; and almost all the furniture and utensils were of wood."

In great cities, and countries where there is an easy communication, the arts are promoted by emulation in things which are called luxuries. But in a country so thinly inhabited as England must now have been, desolated by civil war and rapine, and in which the roads were scarcely passable, there could have been but little intercourse, or rivalship in domestic accommodations. We are not therefore to be surprised that the nation had made so small a progress in the arts, and, in the course of four centuries, had advanced no further on the scale of refinement than from litter to a straw pallet and a good round log for a pillow.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In the year 1603 the pound of silver was coined into 62 shillings, with the usual alloy of 18 grains; and at this number it remains.

(Corn and Husbandry.)The highest price of a quarter of wheat of nine bushels at Windsor market during the first ten years of this century was 21. 16s. 8d.-the lowest was 11. 9s.---the average 11. 17s. 10d.-The prices of the second ten were 21. ss. 8d.; 11. 10s. 4d.; 21. 1s. 1d.—Of the third ten it was 21. 18s. 8d.; 11. 8s.; 21. 1s. 1d.-Of the fourth ten it was 31. 8s.; 21. 4s. 8d.; 2l. 14s. 9d.—And of six years between 1640 and 1650 it was 41. 5s.; 21. 8s.; and 31. 6s. 8d.-By a proclamation of James the First establishing public magazines, the commissioners were empowered to purchase corn for them, whenever wheat was below 11. 12s. a quarter, and barley 16S.

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These prices, at a period when money was scarce and the rent of land low, were comparatively very great. The fact tends to prove that little or no progress had at this time been made in husbandry. The land had, as yet, been chiefly in the hands of small copy and lease-holders under lords who generally resided at their country seats; both of whom were independent of improvements or great exertions for what they deemed the comforts of life. But the gradual increase of expence and taxes since the revolution has rendered it necessary for men of landed property to raise their rents, and of course for their tenants to improve their estates.-This stimulus has concurred with the security of property and other causes to produce that gradual improvement which has been made in land during the eighteenth century. The writer has not been able to ascertain the pay of labourers in husbandry.---It was probably low in comparison with the price of the necessaries of life. But the right of common which many of them enjoyed assisted their industry in supplying a subsistence for their families.

(Wool.)-Wool was sold for 11. 1ss. a tod of twenty-eight pounds during the greatest part of James the First's reign. And the high price of the material, with the high interest of money, which was ten per cent, and

the

d Hume. 6. 175.

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the necessity of sending cloth to Flanders to be dyed, must have rendered this article also dear.

The progress of literature, science, and the fine arts, the extension of commerce and the freer intercourse with other nations which ensued on it, together with the division of landed property in consequence of the law of Henry the Seventh before mentioned, produced a material change in the circumstances and character of the English nation in the course of two centuries. The old English baron revelling with the companions of his coarse debaucheries had given place to a much more refined character. The example of James the First, though himself what in this age would be deemed a pedant, encouraged a taste for learning, and that of Charles the First a taste for the fine arts; and the gaiety and courteousness of Charles the Second, captivating his subjects, together with his licentiousness appears to have diffused a portion of his urbanity throughout the kingdom.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

The coinage of silver continues as in the seventeenth century. (Corn and Husbandry.)-The highest price of a quarter of wheat during this century was 71. 16s.: the lowest 11.

(Cattle.)—Price of a stock ewe between the years 1700 and 1750 was from 5s. to 7s: that of the same between 1770 and 1800 from 11. to 1l. 15s. The price of a lamb in the former period from 4s. to 5s.: in the latter, from 15s. to 11. 4s. Of a middle-sized cow in the former period, from 31. to 51.: in the latter from 10l. to 201. Of a cart-horse in the former period, from 10l. to 151.: in the latter from 251. to 351.

(Wool.) The common price of a weight of wool of twenty pounds in the former period was about 12s. in the latter from 11. to 11. 10s.

(Wages.) The wages of a mason or carpenter in the former period was from 1s. 4d. to 1s. 6d. a day: of a labourer in some parts of England 9d. in others 10d. in others 1s.: in the latter, a mason or carpenter from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d. and a labourer from a 1s. to 1s. 10d.

(Manners, &c.)—There appears to have been very little change of national character or manners between the latter end of the seventeenth and the middle of the eighteenth century. The courtier and country gentleman

gentleman in the beginning of George the Second's reign much resembled his ancestor in king William's: and the clergyman, and the farmer, was nearly the same character in each period. But an essential change has taken place in the course of the last fifty years of the late century. A taste for what is grand, sumptuous and stately in persons of rank, and for simplicity of dress and manners in the middle orders, have both given way to a taste for elegance and expence, which, in some instances, is carried to excess.The change does not, however, appear to have had any prejudicial effect on the morals of either. Though the virtues and vices of the two ages are different, yet the aggregate sum of them is not, perhaps, materially altered. -But the case is different with the lowest orders. Among them, unhappily, the change has been accompanied with a loss of those habits of industry and that spirit of independency which are the foundation of all that is valuable in that class of the community.

PRICE

PRICE OF WHEAT FROM 1651 TO 1801.

THIS table, to the year 1764, is extracted from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and gives the price of a quarter of nine bushels of the highest priced wheat at Windsor market:---From 1771 it is taken from the Appendix to the Annual Register for 1801, and gives the average prices of the kingdom of a quarter of wheat by the Winchester bushel.