36 GOLD AND SILVER FURNITURE. CHAP. XVI. 



been small, notwithstanding the exaggerated de- 

 scriptions of the quantity of it in some of the 

 ancient writers. When these pompous accounts 

 are given in exact weights, we find their amount 

 very insignificant as compared with the general 

 and unfixed relations of the value. 



In Stowe's Survey is an account of the cofferer 

 of the Earl of Leicester in 1813. His magni- 

 ficence must have been equal almost to that of a 

 monarch, his yearly expenditure amounting to 

 7309^ of that money, or about equal to 18,000/. 

 in money of the present day, but in effective value 

 more than equal to one hundred thousand pounds 

 at this time. Among other heads of expenditure 

 is a charge for three hundred and seventy-one pipes 

 of wine, at seventeen shillings per pipe, which may 

 be contrasted with another article, namely, that for 

 silver ; the disbursement for which, for the same 

 year, appears to have been for the following articles, 

 viz. twenty-four dishes, twenty-four saucers, twenty- 

 four cups, one pair of paternosters, and one silver 

 coffin. The whole weighed one thousand two hun- 

 dred and thirty-six ounces, and the cost of it, at one 

 shilling and eight-pence per ounce, was 103/. 5s. 6d. 

 We can scarcely suppose that the expenditure in 

 silver by families of an inferior degree bore a 

 greater proportion to their aggregate expenses 1 . 



1 See Anderson, Hist. Com. vol. i. year 1313. 



