78 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



appointed in old time for servants, slaves, and 

 the inferior kind of people to fee-d upon. Here- 

 unto, likewise, because it is drie and brickie in the 

 working, some add a portion of rie-rneale in our 

 time, whereby the rough drinesse thereof is some- 

 what qualified, and then it is named mescelin, that 

 is r IjreaTtmade of mingled corne.' In the house- 

 hold book of Sir Edward Coke, in 1596, we find 

 constant entries of oatmeal for the use of the house, 

 besides ' otmell to make the poore folkes porage,' 

 and 'rie-meall, to make breade for the poore.' 

 The household wheaten bread was partly baked in 

 the house and partly taken of the baker, In that 

 year it appears, from the historian Stow, that there 

 was a great fluctuation in the price of corn ; and he 

 particularly mentions the price of oatmeal, which 

 would indicate that it was an article of general con- 

 sumption, as well in a liquid form, as in that of the 

 oat-cakes of the north of England. 



In 1626, Charles I, upon an occasion of sub- 

 jecting the brewers and maltsters to a royal license, 

 declared that the measure was ' for the relief of the 

 poorer sort of his people, whose usual bread was 

 barley ; and for the restraining of innkeepers and 

 victuallers, who made their ale and beer too strong 

 and heady.' The grain to be saved by the weakness 

 of the beer was for the benefit of the consumers of 

 barley-bread. 



At the period of the Revolution (1689) wheaten 

 bread formed, in comparison with its present consump- 

 tion, a small proportion of the food of the people of 

 England. The following estimate of the then pro- 

 duce of the arable land in the kingdom tends to prove 

 this position. This estimate was made by Gregory 

 King, whose statistical calculations have generally 

 been considered entitled to credit. 



