[477b] All this is very good.
[477c] The meaning of that word seems difficult to make out.
[479] This shows that the mornspechs and generals were different sorts of meetings; but it seems not very clear wherein they were so.—Quere, if the former were not the religious, and the latter the convivial meetings.
[480a] Ob. seems to be here a contraction of obolus, and signifies a half-penny.
[480b] How very different from the present was that time when three fat sheep sold for eight shillings, and three fatted calves for only eight shilling and ten pence! The difference in a great measure may consist in the comparative value of money, or of the precious metals. They were then, perhaps, above 20 times more valuable, and less plentiful, than now. We are told that the Jewish Solomon made silver to be in Jerusalem as stone, and that it was nothing accounted of in his days: our own Solomon seems to be in the way to bring things to the same pass. But this is no sure indication of national prosperity—Solomon’s subjects, for all the vast influx of wealth, were grievously oppressed and unhappy, of which his unwise successor felt the sad and fatal effects.—The dissolution of monasteries, expulsion of the monks, and introduction of protestantism were long bewailed by many of our country men, as very serious evils, and the causes of the dearness of provisions, &c. Their sentiments and feelings they would often express in verse as well as prose: whence one of our old popular songs had in it these remarkable expressions—
“I remember the time, before the monks went hence,
That a bushel of wheat sold for fourteen pence,
And forty eggs a penny—”
We are also told that about the time when those changes took place, beef sold at a half penny a pound, and mutton at three farthings, and that butchers then sold penny pieces of beef to the poor, which weighed 2lb. & half, and often 3lb. and moreover, that 14 such pieces were sold for shilling.—When the price advanced soon after, it is no wonder that many would impute it to the late religious changes, or previous ecclesiastical revolution.
[480c] Ob. seems to be here a contraction of obolus, and signifies a half-penny.
[485] Our Gilds were somewhat like the navies of our good allies the Portuguese and Spaniards, where almost every ship bears the name of some saint or other: but it does not seem that they are at all the better for that.
[486] How many Gild Halls there were formerly at Lynn, besides those of St. George and the Trinity, it is now impossible to say: but we may pretty safely presume that there were several; one of them was probably that place in Purfleet Street which was a dissenting meeting house 40 or 50 years ago, and is now occupied as a school room: but we pretend not to guess to what Gild it belonged.