It is a sign of the barrenness of the people's fancy, when they are so
easily taken with shows and outsides of things. Never was such painting
and gilding, such sashings and looking-glasses among the shopkeepers, as
there is now; and yet trade flourished more in former times by a gread
deal that it does now, if we may believe the report of very honest and
understanding men. The reason, I think, cannot be to the credit of the
present age, nor it it to the discredit of the former; for they carried
on their trade with less gaiety, and with less expense, than we do
now.[30]

My advice to a young tradesman is to keep the safe middle between these
extremes; something the times must be humoured in, because fashion and
custom must be followed; but let him consider the depth of his stock,
and not lay out half his estate upon fitting up his shop, and then leave
but the other half to furnish it; it is much better to have a full shop,
than a fine shop; and a hundred pounds in goods will make a much better
show than a hundred pounds' worth of painting and carved work; it is
good to make a show, but not to be _all show._

It is true, that painting and adorning a shop seems to intimate, that
the tradesman has a large stock to begin with, or else they suggest he
would not make such a show; hence the young shopkeepers are willing to
make a great show, and beautify, and paint, and gild, and carve, because
they would be thought to have a great stock to begin with; but let me
tell you, the reputation of having a great stock is ill purchased, when
half your stock is laid out to make the world believe it; that is, in
short, reducing yourself to a small stock to have the world believe you
have a great one; in which you do no less than barter the real stock for
the imaginary, and give away your stock to keep the name of it only.