of the Field, Peasants and Partridges,
and fishes of stony rivers, Hen eggs potcht, and such like."

Under May he furnishes us with a second and not less appetising
_menu_:--

"Butter and sage are now the wholesome Breakfast, but fresh cheese and
cream are meat for a dainty mouth; the early Peascods and Strawberries
want no price with great Bellies; but the Chicken and the Duck are
fatted for the Market; the sucking Rabbet is frequently taken in the
Nest, and many a Gosling never lives to be a Goose."

Even so late as the succeeding reign, Breton speaks of the good cheer
at Christmas, and of the cook, if he lacks not wit, sweetly licking
his fingers.

The storage of liquids became a difficult problem where, as among our
ancestors, glazed pottery was long unknown; and more especially with
regard to the supply of water in dry seasons. But so far as milk was
concerned, the daily yield probably seldom exceeded the consumption;
and among the inhabitants further north and east, who, as Caesar says,
partook also of flesh, and did not sow grain--in other words, were
less vegetarian in their habits from the more exhausting nature of the
climate--the consideration might be less urgent. It is open to doubt
if, even in those primitive times, the supply of a national want
lagged far behind the demand.

The list of wines which the King of Hungary proposed to have at the
wedding of his daughter, in "The Squire of Low Degree," is worth
consulting. Harrison, in his "Description of England," 1586, speaks of
thirty different kinds of superior vintages and fifty-six of commoner
or weaker kinds. But the same wine was perhaps known under more than
one name.

Romney or Rumney, a Hungarian growth, Malmsey from the Peloponnesus,
and Hippocras were favourites, and the last-named was kept as late as
the last century in the buttery of St. John's College, Cambridge,
for use during the Christmas festivities. But France, Spain, Greece,
almost all countries, contributed to furnish the ancient wine-cellar,
and gratify the variety of taste among connoisseurs; and for such as
had not the means to purchase foreign productions, the juice of the
English grape, either alone or mingled with honey and spice, furnished
a not unpalatable and not very potent stimulant. As claret and hock
with us, so anciently Bastard and Piment were understood in a generic
sense, the former for any mixed wine, the latter for one seasoned with
spice.

In "Colin Blobol's