Note 480b — HISTORY OF LYNN. PART III. (continued 3)

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—