206 NATURAL HISTORY 



Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all 

 Europe over ; and our forefathers were by no means exempt, 

 as appears by the large provision made for objects labouring 

 under this calamity. There was an hospital for female lepers 

 in the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in 

 London and Southward, and perhaps many more in or near 

 our great towns and cities. Moreover, 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 contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and 

 observes that a leper now is a rare sight. He will, moreover, 

 when engaged in such a train of thought, naturally enquire 

 for the reason. This happy change perhaps may have origi- 

 nated 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 the Second, even so late in the spring as 

 the third 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. 



8 Viz. Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and .six hundred 

 muttons. 



