A HARD-WORKING DIET. 75 
Hard of concoction. Bad nutriment, burdens the 
stomacke—not for the sick. Seeth with sweet herbs 
and oil ; eat with vinegar, or boiled with wild marjoram 
and vinegar. Fit for winter, youth and chollerick. 
The following is a curious rhyming account of 
opinions of the value of certain fish. 
Drayton, in his Polyolbion, has (in 25 song), 
Holland’s oration— 
“What fish can any shore, or British sea town show, 
That’s eatable to us, that it doeth not bestow 
Abundantly thereupon ; the Herring king of sea, 
The faster-feeding Cod, the Mackerell brought by May, 
The dainty Sole and Plaice, the Dab, as of their blood ; 
The Conger finely sous’d, hote summer’s coolest food ; 
The Whiting knowne to all, a general wholesome dish ; 
The Garnet, Rochet, Mayd, and Mullet, dainty fish ; 
The Haddock, Turbet, Bert, fish nourishing and strong ; 
The Thornback and the Scate, provocative among ; 
The Weaver, which although his prickles venom bee, 
By fishers cut away, which buyers seldome see ; 
Yet for the fish he bears, ’tis not accounted bad : 
The Sea-flounder is here, as common as the Shad ; 
The Sturgeon cut to keggs (too big to handle whole) 
Gives many a dainty bit out of his lusty tole, 
Yet of rich Neptune’s store, whilst thus I idely chat, 
Think not that all betwixt the Wherpoole and the Sprat, 
I goe about to name, that were to take in hand 
The Atomy to tell, or to cast up the sand.” 
1598. Epigram De Piscatione. 
“« Fishing, if I a fisher may protest, 
Of pleasures is the sweetest, of sports the best ; 
Of exercises the most excellent ; 
Of recreations the most innocent. 
But now the sport is marde, and wott ye why ? 
Fishes decrease, and fishers multiply.” 
COLLIER’S Poetical Decameron, vol. il., p. 108. 
