CHAP. xx. INCREASED PRICES. 95 



" Albeit there be many things layde downe now 

 " which before time were occasions of much ex- 

 " pences, as May-games, wakes, revels, wages at 

 " shootinge, wrestling, running, throwing the stone 

 " or barre, and, besides that, pardons, pilgrimages, 

 " offrings, and many such other thinges, yet I per- 

 " ceyve we be never the wealthyer, but rather the 

 " poorer: whereof it is long, I cannot well tell, for 

 " there is such a general dearth of all thinges as 

 " before twenty or thirty yeares hath not been the 

 like not onely of things growing within this 

 " realm, but also of all other marchaundize that we 

 " buy from beyond the sea, as sylkes, wynes, oyles, 

 " woode, madder, yron, steele, wax, flaxe, lynen- 

 " cloth, fustyans, worsteddes, coverlets, carpets, 

 " and all hearses and tapestry, spyces of all sortes, 

 " and all haberdasher ware, as paper, both white 

 " and browne, glasses, as well drinking and looking 

 " as for glassing of windowes, pinnes, needles, 

 " knives, daggers, hats, broaches, buttons, and 

 " laces. I wot well all these doe cost nowe more 

 " by the thyrd part than they did but few yeares 

 " ago. Than all vitayle is as deere or deerer agayne ; 

 " and no cause of God's part thereof, as farre as I 

 " can perceave, for I never sawe more plenty of 

 " corne, grasse, and cattell of all sorte than we 

 " have at this present, and have had (as yee know) 

 u all these twenty yeares passed continually, thanked 

 " be our Lord God. If these inclosures were cause 

 " thereof, or any other thinge els, it were a pity 

 " but they might be removed." 



