138 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, ETC. 



joyments of the middle classes were stinted, and even those of 

 the more wealthy were few. It would be a long task to illus- 

 trate this in detail, but my reader will find, from the change in 

 values to be commented on hereafter in particular, that there 

 was a great contrast between the plenty of the fifteenth and 

 the scarcity of the sixteenth centuries. 



