186 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
London. and Southwark; and perhaps many more in or near 
our great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, 
and other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed large 
legacies to such poor people as languished under this hopeless 
infirmity. | 
It must, therefore, in these days be to a humane and think- 
ing 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 3d of May. It was from maga- 
zines 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 
1 Viz., six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred 
muttons. — W, 
