milar result.[721] Sixteen will be a proper
multiple when we would bring the general value of money in this reign to
our present standard.[722] [1816.]

But after ascertaining the proportional values of money at different
periods by a comparison of the prices in several of the chief articles
of expenditure, which is the only fair process, we shall sometimes be
surprised at incidental facts of this class which seem irreducible to
any rule. These difficulties arise not so much from the relative
scarcity of particular commodities, which it is for the most part easy
to explain, as from the change in manners and in the usual mode of
living. We have reached in this age so high a pitch of luxury that we
can hardly believe or comprehend the frugality of ancient times; and
have in general formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure
which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages
by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings
with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and sometimes
inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the
fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with
which the gentry lived under Edward I. or even Henry VI. They drank
little wine; they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept
male servants except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the
price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And
even their hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of
manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys.
Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum
mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed
in our present money, but an income of 10_l._ or 20_l._ was reckoned a
competent estate for a gentleman; at least the lord of a single manor
would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed 150_l._ per annum
passed for extremely rich.[723] Yet this was not equal in command over
commodities to 4000_l._ at present. But this income was comparatively
free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the services of his
villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent
of country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a year as
"a fair living for a yeoman," a class of whom he is not at all inclined
to diminish the importance.[724] So, when Sir William Drury, one of