ier shall have occasion to travel far off with his commodities,
except it be to seek for the highest prices, which commonly are near unto
great cities, where round and speediest utterance is always to be had.
And, as these have been in times past erected for the benefit of the
realm, so are they in many places too, too much abused: for the relief and
ease of the buyer is not so much intended in them as the benefit of the
seller. Neither are the magistrates for the most part (as men loath to
displease their neighbours for their one year's dignity) so careful in
their offices as of right and duty they should be. For, in most of these
markets, neither assizes of bread nor orders for goodness and sweetness of
grain and other commodities that are brought thither to be sold are any
whit looked unto, but each one suffered to sell or set up what and how
himself listeth: and this is one evident cause of dearth and scarcity in
time of great abundance.

I could (if I would) exemplify in many, but I will touch no one
particularly, sith it is rare to see in any country town (as I said) the
assize of bread well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any
country baker happen to come in among them on the market day with bread of
better quantity, they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his
stuff, whereby the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend,
for that he endeavoureth to live by any lawful means) is driven away, and
no more to come there, upon some round penalty, by virtue of their
privileges. Howbeit, though they are so nice in the proportion of their
bread, yet, in lieu of the same, there is such heady ale and beer in most
of them as for the mightiness thereof among such as seek it out is
commonly called "huffcap," "the mad dog," "Father Whoreson," "angels'
food," "dragon's milk," "go-by-the-wall," "stride wide," and "lift leg,"
etc. And this is more to be noted, that when one of late fell by God's
providence into a troubled conscience, after he had considered well of his
reachless life and dangerous estate, another, thinking belike to change
his colour and not his mind, carried him straight away to the strongest
ale, as to the next physician. It is incredible to say how our maltbugs
lug at this liquor, even as pigs should lie in a row lugging at their
dame's teats, till they lie still again and be not able to wag. Neither
did Romulus and Remus suck their she-wolf or shepherd's wife Lupa with
such eage