CHAP. xix.

IN ENGLAND.

father than real; because in the interval greatiterations had been made in the coin. In thereign of Henry VII . the pound weight of silverw as coined into forty-five shillings, twenty ofwhich made a pound sterling. In that part ofthe reign of Edward VI. in which Latimerpreached, for before his death an improvementtook place, the coin had been deteriorated, andthe pound of silver was coined into seventy-twoshillings. The pound of 1497 was worth twenty-Slx shillings and eight-pence in our present money,and the pound of 1548 no more than seventeenshillings and eight-pence, and consequently the ad-vance of rent from four pounds to sixteen poundsNominally, was really from five pounds six shillingsand eight-pence to fourteen pounds two shillings,0r little more than one hundred and sixty per°ent. This is a much more probable rate of ad-v ance than what would be inferred from the bareWords of the sermon. It corresponds with thec °ntemporaneous increase in the quantity of theP re cious metals, and with the general advance ofiPace in other commodities.

The bishop was evidently unaware that themflux 0 f g 0 } ( ] an( j s iiver from the new world wasP l °ducing a gradual increase of prices, and like°ther persons in that age sought, with more zealan judgment, to find the causes of this ex-uoidinary phenomenon. He attributes this,^ lc h he treated as a great evil, to enclosures, toe P walks, to regraters, forestalled, and to any