The Natural History of Se /borne 303 



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 king- 

 doms ; 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 marvel- 

 lous 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 dis- 

 order or mischief. But agriculture 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 preventing 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 



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

 muttons. 



