CHAP. XX. INCREASED PRICES. 89 



operation as the increased production of mines in 

 a country so remote that even their existence may 

 be unknown. 



It would naturally be imagined, at a time when 

 money was looked upon almost exclusively as 

 wealth, that an addition to it would have been 

 hailed with joy that every individual and each 

 community would have been gladdened at the 

 knowledge that they were becoming more rich 

 than they had before considered themselves. The 

 very reverse of this, however, appears to have been 

 the case, and complaints of distress were never so 

 frequent nor so loud as at the period we are now 

 referring to. 



A valuable work on this subject was published 

 in the reign of Elizabeth, in the year 1581, en- 

 titled "A Briefe Conceipte touching the Common- 

 Weale of this Realme of England." It is in the 

 form of a dialogue between a knight, a landholder 

 who had served in parliament, a husbandman a 

 tenant to the knight, a merchant or shopkeeper 

 in a large town, a manufacturer of caps or hats of 

 the same place, and a doctor of divinity. The 

 dialogue is carried on with intelligence, with 

 urbanity, and with views appropriate to the re- 

 spective characters of the speakers. The author, 

 said by Watt to be a William Stafford J , displays 



1 The name in the title-page in the black-letter copy is 

 " W. S., Gentleman." Nothing certain is known of the 

 author, but a bookseller in 1751 reprinted the " Conceipte/' 



