NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE, 211 



It must, therefore, in these days be to a 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 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 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 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 disorder 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. 



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

 hundred muttons. 



