n them.

[Sidenote: Sumptuary laws.]

The principle of sumptuary laws was partly derived from the small
republics of antiquity, which might perhaps require that security for
public spirit and equal rights--partly from the austere and injudicious
theory of religion disseminated by the clergy. These prejudices united
to render all increase of general comforts odious under the name of
luxury; and a third motive more powerful than either, the jealousy with
which the great regard anything like imitation in those beneath them,
co-operated to produce a sort of restrictive code in the laws of Europe.
Some of these regulations are more ancient; but the chief part were
enacted, both in France and England, during the fourteenth century,
extending to expenses of the table as well as apparel. The first statute
of this description in our own country was, however, repealed the next
year;[651] and subsequent provisions were entirely disregarded by a
nation which valued liberty and commerce too much to obey laws conceived
in a spirit hostile to both. Laws indeed designed by those governments
to restrain the extravagance of their subjects may well justify the
severe indignation which Adam Smith has poured upon all such
interference with private expenditure. The kings of France and England
were undoubtedly more egregious spendthrifts than any others in their
dominions; and contributed far more by their love of pageantry to excite
a taste for dissipation in their people than by their ordinances to
repress it.

[Sidenote: Domestic manners of Italy.]

Mussus, an historian of Placentia, has left a pretty copious account of
the prevailing manners among his countrymen about 1388, and expressly
contrasts their more luxurious living with the style of their ancestors
seventy years before, when, as we have seen, they had already made
considerable steps towards refinement. This passage is highly
interesting, because it shows the regular tenor of domestic economy in
an Italian city rather than a mere display of individual magnificence,
as in most of the facts collected by our own and the French antiquaries.
But it is much too long for insertion in this place.[652] No other
country, perhaps, could exhibit so fair a picture of middle life: in
France the burghers, and even the inferior gentry, were for the most
part in a state of poverty at this period, which they concealed by an
affectation of ornament; while our English yeomanry and tradesmen were