32 B

TIIK NATURE AND CAUSES OE

or what is most trifling of all, in amassing a great wardrobeof fine clothes, like the favourite and minister of a great princewho died a few years ago. Were two men of equal fortune tospend their revenue,'the one chiefly in the one way, the otherin the other, the magnificence of the person whose expensehad been chiefly in durable commodities, would be continuallyincreasing, every day’s expense contributing something to sup-port and heighten the effect of that of the following day; thatof the other, on the contrary, would be no greater at the end ofthe period than at the beginning. The former too would, at theend of the period, be the richer man of the two. lie wouldhave a stock of goods of some kind or other, which, thoughit might not be worth all that it cost, would always be worthsomething. No trace or vestige of the expense of the latterwould remain, and the effects of ten or twenty years’ profu-sion would be as completely annihilated as if they had neverexisted.

As the one mode of expense is more favourable than theother to the opulence of an individual, so it is likewise tothat of a nation. The houses, the furniture, the clothing ofthe rich, in a little tinn* become useful to the inferior andmiddling ranks of people. They are able to purchase themwhen their superiors grow weary of them, and the generalaccommodation of the whole people is thus gradually im-proved, when this mode of expense becomes universal amongmen of fortune. In countries which have long been rich, youwill frequently find the inferior ranks of people in possessionboth of houses and furniture perfectly good and entire, butof which neither the one could have been built, nor the otherhave been made for their use. What was formerly a seat ofthe family of Seymour, is now an inn upon the Bath road.The marriage-bed of James the First of Great Britain, whichhis Queen brought with her from Denmark , as a present fit fora sovereign to make to a sovereign, was, a few years ago, theornament of an ale-house at Dunfermline . In some ancientcities, which either have been long stationary, or have gonesomewhat to decay, you will sometimes scarce find a singlehouse which could have been built for its present inhabitants.If you go into those houses too, you will frequently find manyexcellent, though antiquated pieces of furniture, which arestill very fit for use, and which could as little have been madefor them. Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collectionsof books, statues, pictures, and other curiosities, are fre-