chap. XVI. GOLD AND SILVER FURNITURE.

39

were very coarse, were conveyed from house tohouse in seventeen carts and one waggon, thoughthe family consisted of two hundred and twenty-three persons. In no part of the book does therea ppear to have been any expenditure for plate,and it seems probable that little if any was used.Pewter must have been a substitute for it, andthat not wholly the property of the Duke, as°ne of the charges in the account is for the hireof pewter vessels without noticing the descriptionof them.

When alluding to the rarity of utensils of goldand silver, it is impossible to overlook the articleof watches, which now engross so large a share ofthose metals. The discovery of that invention formeasuring time, which is now in the pockets ofmillions, may be dated not earlier than the reignof Henry VIII. , and it was by no means in com-mon use even in the reign of Elizabeth. TheEmperor Charles V. had several which he seemsto have kept in order by great personal attention,and our Henry VIII . had one which was noticed bySir Isaac Newton , as being in existence in his day ;but at any rate they could scarcely have beenknown, and certainly not common at the time ofthe discovery of America in 1483.

It could only be a conjecture, and necessarily aloose conjecture, if we were to attempt to statethe proportion which gold and silver in the form°f furniture bore to the quantity of those metals