The early improvements in luxury were seized by the greater nobles, whose fortunes, placing them above frugality, or even calculation, were soon dissipated in expensive pleasures.

These improvements reached at last all men of property; and those of slender fortunes, who at that time were often men of family, imitating those of a rank immediately above them, reduced themselves to poverty.

Their lands, coming to sale, swelled the estates of those who possessed itches sufficient for the fashionable expenses, but who were not exempted from some care and attention to their domestic economy.
The gentry also of that age were engaged in no expense, except that of country hospitality.

No taxes were levied, no wars waged, no attendance at court expected, no bribery or profusion required at elections.[**] Could human nature ever reach happiness, the condition of the English gentry, under so mild and benign a prince, might merit that appellation.
The amount of the king's revenue, as it stood in 1617, is thus stated.[***] * Cabala, p.

224, 1st edit.
** Men seem then to have been ambitious of representing the counties, but careless on the boroughs.