ty
of the land, they will seldom regard anything that the butcher usually
killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come in place. In such
cases also jellies of all colours, mixed with a variety in the
representation of sundry flowers, herbs, trees, forms of beasts, fish,
fowls, and fruits, and thereunto marchpane wrought with no small
curiosity, tarts of divers hues, and sundry denominations, conserves
of old fruits, foreign and home-bred, suckets, codinacs, marmalades,
marchpane, sugar-bread, gingerbread, florentines, wild fowls, venison
of all sorts, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned
with sugar (which Pliny calleth _mel ex arundinibus_, a device not
common nor greatly used in old time at the table, but only in
medicine, although it grew in Arabia, India, and Sicilia), do
generally bear the sway, besides infinite devices of our own not
possible for me to remember. Of the potato, and such venerous roots as
are brought out of Spain, Portugal, and the Indies to furnish up our
banquets, I speak not, wherein our mures[1] of no less force, and to
be had about Crosby-Ravenswath, do now begin to have place.

[1] Sweet cicely, sometimes miscalled myrrh. Mure is the Saxon
word. At one time the plant was not uncommon as a salad.--W.

But among all these, the kind of meat which is obtained with most
difficulty and costs, is commonly taken for the most delicate, and
thereupon each guest will soonest desire to feed. And as all estates
do exceed herein, I mean for strangeness and number of costly dishes,
so these forget not to use the like excess in wine, insomuch as there
is no kind to be had, neither anywhere more store of all sorts than in
England, although we have none growing with us but yearly to the
proportion of 20,000 of 30,000 tun and upwards, notwithstanding the
daily restraints of the same brought over unto us, whereof at great
meetings there is not some store to be had. Neither do I mean this of
small wines only, as claret, white, red, French, etc., which amount to
about fifty-six sorts, according to the number of regions from whence
they came, but also of the thirty kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish,
Canarian, etc., whereof vernage, catepument, raspis, muscadell,
romnie, bastard lire, osy caprie, clary, and malmesey, are not least
of all accompted of, because of their strength and valour. For, as I
have said in meat, so, the stronger the wine is, the more it is
desired, by means