obs, were still alive,--for
whose sake alone it is that any trace of ancient grandeur is suffered to
remain. These palaces are a true emblem of some governments: the
inhabitants are decayed, but the governors and magistrates still
flourish. They put me in mind of Old Sarum, where the representatives,
more in number than the constituents, only serve to inform us that this
was once a place of trade, and sounding with "the busy hum of men,"
though now you can only trace the streets by the color of the corn, and
its sole manufacture is in members of Parliament.

These old establishments were formed also on a third principle, still
more adverse to the living economy of the age. They were formed, Sir, on
the principle of _purveyance_ and _receipt in kind_. In former days,
when the household was vast, and the supply scanty and precarious, the
royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to
purchase provision with power and prerogative instead of money, brought
home the plunder of an hundred markets, and all that could be seized
from a flying and hiding country, and deposited their spoil in an
hundred caverns, with each its keeper. There, every commodity, received
in its rawest condition, went through all the process which fitted it
for use. This inconvenient receipt produced an economy suited only to
itself. It multiplied offices beyond all measure,--buttery, pantry, and
all that rabble of places, which, though profitable to the holders, and
expensive to the state, are almost too mean to mention.

All this might be, and I believe was, necessary at first; for it is
remarkable, that _purveyance_, after its regulation had been the subject
of a long line of statutes, (not fewer, I think, than twenty-six,) was
wholly taken away by the 12th of Charles the Second; yet in the next
year of the same reign it was found necessary to revive it by a special
act of Parliament, for the sake of the king's journeys. This, Sir, is
curious, and what would hardly he expected in so reduced a court as
that of Charles the Second and in so improved a country as England might
then be thought. But so it was. In our time, one well-filled and
well-covered stage-coach requires more accommodation than a royal
progress, and every district, at an hour's warning, can supply an army.

I do not say, Sir, that all these establishments, whose principle is
gone, have been systematically kept up for influence solely: neglect had
its share. But