NEW ATLANTIS. 403 



* I will not hold you long with recounting of our 

 brew-houses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are 

 made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of 

 special effects. Wines we have of grapes ; and drinks 

 of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots : 1 and 

 of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried 

 and decocted. Also of the tears or woundings of trees, 

 and of the pulp of canes. And these. drinks are of 

 several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. 

 We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and 

 roots, and spices ; yea with several fleshes, and white 

 meats ; 2 whereof some of the drinks are such, as they 

 are in effect meat and drink both : 3 so that divers, es 

 pecially in age, do desire to live with them, with little 

 or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to 

 have drinks of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the 

 body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting ; 

 insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your 

 hand will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, 

 and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters 

 which we ripen in that fashion, as they become nour 

 ishing ; so that they are indeed excellent drink ; and 

 many will use no other. Breads we have of several 

 grains, roots, and kernels : yea and some of flesh and 

 fish dried ; with divers kinds of leavenings and season 

 ings : so that some do extremely move appetites ; some 

 do nourish so, as clivers do live of them, without any 

 other meat ; who live very long. So for meats, we 



1 decoctionibus granorum et radicum. 



2 quin et additis qitandoque carnibus, ovis, lacticiniis, et aliis esculenlis. 



3 Chocolate, which however was well known in Bacon s time, seems to 

 fulfil this description. It long since gave rise to a doubt whether drinking 

 it amounted to breaking fast. See the treatise of the Jesuit Hurtado, 

 &quot;Utrum potio chocolatica frangat jejunium EcclesiaV . L. E. 



