Of this kind are the different furs[47] used for muffs, trimmings, and linings, which, as the chief of the kind, I shall particularize. You will find them below. The diversions of the higher classes form another and the only remaining head of inquiry into their expenses: I mean those diversions which distinguish the country and the town life,--which are visible and tangible to the statesman,--which have some public measure and standard. And here, when, I look to the report of your committee, I, for the first time, perceive a failure. It is clearly so. Whichever way I reckon the four years of peace, the old tax on the sports of the field has certainly proved deficient since the war. The same money, however, or nearly the same, has been paid to government,--though the same number of individuals have not contributed to the payment. An additional tax was laid in 1791, and during the war has produced upwards of 61,000_l._, which is about 4000_l._ more than the decrease of the old tax, in one scheme of comparison, and about 4000_l._ less, in the other scheme. I might remark, that the amount of the new tax, in the several years of the war, by no means bears the proportion which it ought to the old. There seems to be some great irregularity or other in the receipt. But I do not think it worth while to examine into the argument. I am willing to suppose that many, who, in the idleness of peace, made war upon partridges, hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble arms against the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries may do what they please with that concession. They are welcome to make the most of it. I am sure of a very handsome set-off in the other branch of expense,--the amusements of a town life. There is much gayety and dissipation and profusion which must escape and disappoint all the arithmetic of political economy. But the theatres are a prominent feature. They are established through every part of the kingdom, at a cost unknown till our days. There is hardly a provincial capital which does not possess, or which does not aspire to possess, a theatre-royal. Most of them engage for a short time, at a vast price, every actor or actress of name in the metropolis: a distinction which in the reign of my old friend Garrick was confined to very few. The dresses, the scenes, the decorations of every kind, I am told, are in a new style of splendor and magnificence: whether to the advantage of our dramatic taste, upon the whole, I very much doubt. It is a show and a spectacle, not a play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age:-- Migravit ab aure voluptas Omnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana: Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas, Dum fugiunt equitum turmæ, peditumque catervæ;-- I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and abominate the sequel:--