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, viz. 

 six hundred bacons, eighty carcases of beef, and six 

 hundred muttons, in the days of Edward the Second, 

 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 retain- 

 ers ready for any disorder or mischief. But 'agri- 

 culture is now arrived at such a pitch of perfection, 

 that our best and fattest meats are killed in the win- 

 ter ; and no man need eat salted flesh, unless he pre- 

 fers it. 



One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, 

 the quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish con- 

 sumed by the commonalty at all seasons as well as in 

 Lent ; which our poor now would hardly be per- 

 suaded 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 mod- 

 ern ; 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 sub- 

 ject to foul eruptions. 



The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is 



found among all ranks of people in the south, instead 



86 



