ISO WATCHES AND ORNAMENTS. CHAP. xxr. 



suppose that one-tenth of the inhabitants had a 

 silver watch, and one-hundredth part a gold watch, 

 with cases weighing two ounces, the whole would 

 amount to near twenty millions sterling. The 

 supposition is made without any assumption of its 

 correctness, and merely to show the prodigious 

 extent and consequent consumption of an article 

 when from the decline in its value it descends to 

 the most numerous classes of society. 



In the preceding century, the silver or the 

 gold which formed the hilts of the knights' 

 swords, or the spurs fixed on their heels to 

 denote their rank or their valour, the embroidery 

 on the cloaks of the magistrates, the jewels on the 

 habiliments of kings, nobles, and high-born dames, 

 .. might give splendour to the tournaments and 

 attract the notice of the chronicler or historian ; 

 but the value of such decorations would amount 

 but to a most insignificant trifle when compared 

 with the whole of those smaller portions of gold 

 and silver possessed by the many millions in the 

 ranks below them, who in the century that fol- 

 lowed began to assume their just station in society. 



Under consideration of all the changes in the 

 circumstances of European society, it seems fair 

 to conclude that the proportion of the precious 

 metals in the seventeenth century which was 

 applied to other purposes than making money 

 had much increased beyond that proportion which 

 it bore in the sixteenth century, and which has 

 been estimated in this inquiry as one-tenth. It 



