THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

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quently both au ornament and an honour, not only to theneighbourhood, but to the whole country to which they be-long. Versailles is an ornament and an honour to France ,Stowe and Wilton to England. Italy still continues to com-mand some sort of veneration by the number of monumentsof this kind which it possesses, though the wealth which pro-duced them has decayed, and though the genius whichplanned them seems to be extinguished, perhaps from nothaving the same employment.

The expense too which is laid out in durable commoditiesis favourable not only to accumulation, but to frugality. Ifa person should at any time exceed in it, he can easily re-form without exposing himself to the censure of the public.To reduce very much the number of his servants, to reformhis table from great profusion to great frugality, to lay downhis equipage alter he has onceset it up, are changes whichcannot escape the observation of his neighbours, and whichare supposed to imply some acknowledgment of precedingbad conduct. Few, therefore, of those who have once been sounfortunate as to launch out too far into this sort of expense,have afterward the courage to reform, till ruin and bank-ruptcy oblige them. But if a person has, at any time, been attoo great an expense in building, in furniture, in books or pic-tures, no imprudence can be inferred from his changing hisconduct. These are things in which further expense is fre-quently rendered unnecessary by former expense; and when aperson stops short, he appears to do so, not because he hasexceeded his fortune, but because he has satisfied his fancy.

The expense, besides, that is laid out in durable commo-dities, gives maintenance, commonly, to a greater number ofpeople, than that which is employed in the most profuse hos-pitality. Of two or three hundred weight of provisions,which may sometimes be served up at a great festival, one-half, perhaps, is thrown to the dunghill, and there is alwaysa great deal wasted and abused. But if the expense of thisentertainment had been employed in setting to work masons,carpenters, upholsterers, mechanics, See. a quantity of provi-sions of equal value would have been distributed among astill greater number ot people, who would have bought themin penny-worths and pound weights, and not have lost northrown away a single ounce of them. In the one way, be-sides, this expense maintains productive, in the other unpro-ductive hands. In the one way, therefore, it increases, in the

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