NATURAL HISTOHY OF SELBOENE. 
155 
It must, therefore, in these days be to an 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 IL, 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. 
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 com- 
paratively modern ; but must prove a great means of preventing 
cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen, instead of linen, prevails 
among the poorer Welch, 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 contribute not a little to the 
sweetening their blood and correcting their juices ; for the inhabitants 
of mountainous districts to this day are still liable to the itch and 
other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness and poverty of diet. 
As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person of obser- 
vation may perceive, within his own memory, both in town and country, 
how vastly the consumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in 
cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners 
get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden, which is half 
his support, as well as his delight ; and common farmers provide plenty 
of beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon ; and 
those few that do not are despised for their sordid parsimony, and 
looked upon as regardless of the welfare of their dependents. Potatoes 
have prevailed in this little district by means of premiums within these 
twenty years only ; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who 
would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. 
Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, because 
* Viz., Six liundred bacons, eigMy carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons. 
