NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORWE. 215 
anoble one near Durham; three in London and Southwark; and 
perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. More- 
over, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable 
personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor people as 
languished under this hopeless infirmity. 
It must, therefore, in these days be to an humane and thinking 
person a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he contem- 
plates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes that a leper 
now isa rare sight. He will, moreover, when engaged in such a 
train of thought naturally inquire for the reason. This happy 
change, perhaps, may have originated and been continued from the 
much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten in these 
kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; from the plenty of 
better bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, roots, legumes, and 
greens, So common in every family. Three or four centuries ago 
before there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or 
field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, 
and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after 
Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months ; so 
that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the 
marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the 
larder of the eldest Spencer* in the days of Edward II., even so 
late in the spring as the 3rd of May. It was from magazines like 
these that the turbulent barons supported in idleness their riotous 
swarms of retainers ready for any disorder or mischief. But agri- 
culture is now arrived at such a pitch of perfection that our best 
and fattest meats are killed in the winter ; and no man need eat 
salted flesh unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh. 
One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity of 
wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at all 
seasons as well as in Lent ; which our poor now would hardly be 
persuaded to touch. 
The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid 
and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of neatness 
comparatively modern; but must prove a great means of prevent- 
ing cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen, instead of linen 
prevails among the poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions. 
‘The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all 
ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which 
used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may contribute not 
* Viz., Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons. 
