LIFE AND DEATH. 393 



be spent at the table with them, or none at all; for salt 

 incorporated with the meat before, is better distributed in 

 the body than eaten with it at the table. 



9. There would be brought into use several and good 

 macerations and infusions of meats in convenient liquors, 

 before the roasting of them, the like whereof are sometime 

 in use before they bake them, and in the pickles of some 

 fishes. 



1 0. But beatings, and as it were scourgings, of flesh meats 

 before they be boiled, would work no small matter. We see 

 it is confessed, that partridges and pheasants killed with a 

 hawk, also bucks and stags killed in hunting, if they stand 

 not out too long, eat better even to the taste, and some 

 fishes scourged and beaten become more tender and whole 

 some; also hard and sour pears, and some other fruits, 

 grow sweet with rolling them. It were good to practise 

 some such beating and bruising of the harder kinds of 

 fleshes before they be brought to the fire, and this would 

 be one of the best preparations of all. 



11. Bread a little leavened and very little salted is best, 

 and which is baked in an oven thoroughly heated, and not 

 with a faint heat. 



12. The preparation of drinks, in order to long life, shall 

 not exceed one precept; and as touching water drinkers, 

 we have nothing to say, such a diet (as we said before) 

 may prolong life to an indifferent term, but to no eminent 

 length ; but in other drinks that are full of spirit (such as 

 are wine, ale, mead, and the like), this one thing is to be 

 observed and pursued as the sum of all, That the parts of 

 the liquor may be exceeding thin and subtile, and the spirit 

 exceeding mild. This is hard to be done by age alone, for 

 that makes the parts a little more subtile, but the spirits 

 much more sharp and eager ; therefore of the infusions in 

 the vessels of some fat substance, which may restrain the 

 acrimony of the spirits, counsel hath been given before. 

 There is also another way without infusion or mixture ; this 

 is, that the liquor might be continually agitated, either by 

 carriage upon the water, or by carriage by land, or by 

 hanging the vessels upon lines, and daily stirring them, or 

 some such other way ; for it is certain, that this local mo 

 tion doth both subtilize the parts, and doth so incorporate 

 and compact the spirits with the parts, that they have no 

 leisure to turn to sourness, which is a kind of putrefaction. 



But in extreme old age such a preparation of meats is to 

 be made, as may be almost in the middle way to chylous. 



