fty sols to three livres the pound,
and every other article in the same or a higher proportion. Thus, a
man's daily wages, instead of purchasing four or five pounds of meat, as
they would have done before the revolution, now only purchase one.

It grieves me to see people whom I have known at their ease, obliged to
relinquish, in the decline of life, comforts to which they were
accustomed at a time when youth rendered indulgence less necessary; yet
every day points to the necessity of additional oeconomy, and some little
convenience or enjoyment is retrenched--and to those who are not above
acknowledging how much we are the creatures of habit, a dish of coffee,
or a glass of liqueur, &c. will not seem such trifling privations. It is
true, these are, strictly speaking, luxuries; so too are most things by
comparison--

"O reason not the need: our basest beggars
"Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
"Allow not nature more than nature needs,
"Man's life is cheap as beast's."

If the wants of one class were relieved by these deductions from the
enjoyments of another, it might form a sufficient consolation; but the
same causes which have banished the splendor of wealth and the comforts
of mediocrity, deprive the poor of bread and raiment, and enforced
parsimony is not more generally conspicuous than wretchedness.

The frugal tables of those who were once rich, have been accompanied by
relative and similar changes among the lower classes; and the suppression
of gilt equipages is so far from diminishing the number of wooden shoes,
that for one pair of sabots which were seen formerly, there are now ten.
The only Lucullus's of the day are a swarm of adventurers who have
escaped from prisons, or abandoned gaming-houses, to raise fortunes by
speculating in the various modes of acquiring wealth which the revolution
has engendered.--These, together with the numberless agents of government
enriched by more direct pillage, live in coarse luxury, and dissipate
with careless profusion those riches which their original situations and
habits have disqualified them from converting to a better use.

Although the circumstances of the times have necessitated a good deal of
domestic oeconomy among people who live on their fortunes, they have
lately assumed a gayer style of dress, and are less averse from
frequenting public amusements. For three years past, (and very
naturally,) the gentry have op