"let such, when they are past forty years of
age, begin to make much of the use of wine."
As to the mixture of wine with water, that
is good for young men, "but for them that
are cold by temperature, or well stricken in
years, pure wine is in time of health more
convenient," and even in case of feverous
distemperature, to allay their thirst, they may
not put more than four parts of water to one
part of wine, "less that the hurts which
water is likely to bring to such bodies, should
be greater than the commodity of cooling and
quenching the thirst." A distinct chapter
is given to refutation of a popular belief, that
"it is expedient for health to be drunk with
wine once or twice a month." The worthy
doctor has an honourable love for wine, and
scorns those who—though it be once in a
lifetime only—use it in debauchery.

The next chapter comprises beer and ale,
beer being the name given of old, and still
given in the Doctor's native county, to the
stronger and the better brew. There were
no hops at all in ale. Beer, he says (hear
and believe, Allsop and Bass!)—" beer that is
too bitter of the hops (as many to save malt
are wont to make it), is of a fuming nature
and therefore it engendereth rheums and
distillations, hurteth the sinews, offendeth the
sight, and causeth the head-ache by filling the
ventricles of the brain with troublesome
vapours; wherefore not only the internal,
but also the external senses are very much
disturbed and hurted." Such was the decision
of the faculty in Shakespeare's time on
bitter beer.

We pass over cider and perry, usual drinks
where fruits do abound; they are cold in
operation, good for the choleric or to be drunk
when fasting, but if drunk at meals, they
blanch the face and cover the skin with a
white spotted deformity. Metheglin is a very
strong kind of drink, made of two parts of
water and one of honey, boiled together and
scummed very clean, and if rosemary, hyssop,
thyme, origanum and sage be first well boiled
in the water, whereof you make the metheglin,
it will be better. Also there should be added
afterwards a dash of ginger. This was a
drink held to be exceedingly wholesome in
the winter for old folks. Mead was metheglin
made with twice the quantity of water.
Metheglin took three or four months, mead one
month to settle. Mead was pronounced profitable
to all bodies from the beginning of April to
the beginning or middle of September, for the
preserving of health, to be taken in an empty
stomach. Aqua vitæ distilled from sack,
muscadel or other wine with many herbs and spices
is good for your families and for neighbours in
their necessities. There is not any water in
use which can better fortify life, and hinder
the coming in of old age than the aforesaid
Aqua vitæ. Having discussed in this way
bread and wine, we come unto flesh of beasts
and fowls.

In the case of meats as in the case of wines
it interests us to read what the men fed upon
who produced Faery Queenes, Macbeths, and
New Instruments of Philosophy. Let us
throw aside the Doctor's theories of cholers,
rheums and distillations, only observing that
he prefers of moist animals mature to immature
meat, "notwithstanding that roasted
pigs are of most men greatly desired, and for
some certain bodies very profitable," and of
dry animals he finds the immature meat
preferable by reason of its greater moistness.
Wherefore kids and calves are for goodness of
meat better than goats and oxen, and the like
is to be said of pigeons, fawns, &c. He
accounts meat salted for from one to five days
as wholesomer than fresh, but meat salted
and hung to dry by the fire,—Martinmass beef,
for example—he will "leave as only convenient
for labouring men and such as have strong
stomachs." He leaves a good many
indigestible things to be enjoyed as their fit diet
by the rustics:—the flesh of elder sheep,
bulls' beef, (it "is of a rank and unpleasant
taste, of a thick gross and corrupt juice, and
of a very hard digestion. I commend it unto
poor hard labourers.") Bacon, because "it is
of hard digestion and breedeth dust and
choleric humours," old peacocks, shad and
mackarel which, "quickly induce a loathing
noisomeness to the stomach:"for some salt-water
fishes, in those days of slow locomotion,
were seldom eaten in a really fresh
state, except on their own coasts by the coast
people: the tougher and larger cuttle-fishes,
thornback, "a fish of gross, excremental, and
putrid juice, a meat of ill-smell, unpleasant
savour, unwholesome nourishment, noisome
to the stomach, only fit for hard-labouring
men;" also the tench, "unwholesome, and of
hard concoction, it is a muddy and
excremental fish, unpleasant to the taste, noisome
to the stomach, and filleth the body with
gross and slimy humours; notwithstanding,
it is a meat convenient enough for labouring
men." So dainty was the diet proposed to
rustical stomachs by the fashionable doctor
of the days of Queen Elizabeth and of King
James.

Now let us run over a score of notes. The
Arabian physicians place kid's flesh above all
other, especially the flesh of sucking kid. To.
Venner subscribes to this, saving the majesty
of veal. Veal—a more odoriferous flesh than
any other—he declares to be best meat of all,
but he prefers kid to lamb. The best mutton
is of a year or two old, or thereabout; and if
it be of a young wether it is best of all.
Veal, "if it be of the age between one and
two months, and completely fat, then it is of
an excellent temperament and nutriture, and
for every season, age, and temperature,
exceeding all quadrupedal creatures." Pork is
not fit for those who are gross or of weak
stomach; bacon is of hard digestion, and a
gammon of bacon is the same, but not so
good, "for it is of harder digestion, and the
best virtue that it hath, is to commend