206 USE OF GOLD AND SILVER. CHAP. XXIV. 



kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden. The in- 

 habitants of all those countries, however it may 

 have been with the governments, increased in 

 material wealth ; and we may fairly infer that in 

 a similar manner they must have increased in the 

 application of that wealth to purposes of luxury, 

 of show, of splendour, or of such gratifications of 

 an ornamental kind as best coincided with their 

 respective tastes. The use of gold and silver 

 must therefore among them have become more 

 extended ; and as it descended from the higher 

 ranks to the more numerous bodies of which the 

 ranks below them consisted must have caused an 

 increased consumption in that way. 



The progressive steps in luxury are much more 

 traceable by us in England than in foreign coun- 

 tries. We shall therefore take no farther notice 

 of Holland, of the Netherlands, of theHanse towns, 

 or the independent republics of Italy, than to 

 observe that their progress in wealth and luxury, 

 though checked by occasional interruptions, con- 

 tinued generally through the whole of the century, 

 and the application of the precious metals to the 

 latter purpose must have been nearly in the same 

 proportion. 



England. I n the reign of Queen Anne there seems, from 

 the accounts preserved at Goldsmiths' Hall, to 

 have been a very sudden increase in the manu- 

 facture of plate. It may be difficult to account 

 for the fact, but perhaps the rich services pre- 



