(*Leges Sumptuariae*), are laws made to restrain luxury. Most ages and nations have had some such laws. Political writers have been much divided in opinion with respect to their utility. Montesquieu observes that luxury is necessary in monarchies, as in France, but ruinous to democracies, as in Holland. With regard to England, whose government is compounded of both species, it may still be a dubious question, says Blackstone, how far private luxury is a public evil, and as such cognisable by public laws.

**SUN.** See ASTRONOMY.