LIXEN. 553 



experience which we have of tradesmen's shops is very modern. 

 Two or three generations ago, people bargained for the goods 

 they bought and sold on the principles which rule to this day 

 in a corn or cattle market ; and for example, linen purchased 

 by the same corporation for successive years, described in the 

 same words, and destined for the same uses, will vary in price 

 by 15 to 30 per cent. 



The cheaper the goods are, and the lower the quality, the 

 more regular is the price. Thus the ordinary table-linen 

 procured by the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, the price of 

 which fails me for two years only, is pretty uniform in value, 

 though even here variations are discoverable, while the 

 steadiest on the whole is the common canvas which supplied 

 the table-linen of the Eton boys, and is given pretty regularly 

 till the College ceased to keep account of the cost. The price 

 of common napkins, which also fail me only for six years, is 

 very steady. But the price of towelling, especially towards the 

 latter part of the period, when it stands for forty years at 

 nearly the same price, presents fewer changes than most 

 others. 



There are inevitable varieties of price in sheeting and shirting 

 of the commoner kinds, for in the first twenty years the price 

 is occasionally much higher than the cost of this article under 

 ordinary circumstances is generally found to be, and these 

 prices have somewhat raised the general as well as the decennial 

 averages. 



Looking at general prices of linen fabrics, it is plain that no 

 material increase of price was effected in these commodities, 

 whatever may be found as regards other objects in demand. 

 I account for this mainly by the fact of the two great immigra- 

 tions of foreign weavers, the Flemish about 1576, the Huguenots 

 after 1685. But it is I think clear, that during the twenty 

 years 1653-1672 the prices of nearly all kinds of linens rose, 

 and during the last twenty years there was a general fall. The 

 latter fact is I think entirely due to the Huguenot exodus. The 

 foolish bigotry of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, Louis 



