sumptuary laws in this town, which distinguish their rank by their
dress, prevent the excess which ruins so many other cities, and has a
more agreeable effect to the eye of a stranger, than our fashions. I
need not be ashamed to own, that I wish these laws were in force in
other parts of the world. When one considers impartially, the merit
of a rich suit of clothes in most places, the respect and the smiles
of favour it procures, not to speak of the envy and the sighs it
occasions (which is very often the principal charm to the wearer),
one is forced to confess, that there is need of an uncommon
understanding to resift the temptation of pleasing friends and
mortifying rivals; and that it is natural to young people to fall
into a folly, which betrays them to that want of money which is the
source of a thousand basenesses (sic). What numbers of men have
begun the world with generous inclinations, that have afterwards been
the instruments of bringing misery on a whole people, being led by
vain expence (sic) into debts that they could clear no other way but
by the forfeit of their honour, and which they never could have
contracted, if the respect the multitude pays to habits, was fixed by
law, only to a particular colour or cut of plain cloth! These
reflections draw after them others that are too melancholy. I will
make haste to put them out of your head by the farce of relicks, with
which I have been entertained in all Romish churches.

THE Lutherans are not quite free from these follies. I have seen
here, in the principal church, a large piece of the cross set in
jewels, and the point of the spear, which they told me very gravely,
was the same that pierced the side of our Saviour. But I was
particularly diverted in a little Roman Catholic church which is
permitted here, where the professors of that religion are not very
rich, and consequently cannot adorn their images in so rich a manner