,--of gleaners, who will expect their cakes and bannocks,--of
threshers, who leave no garlic, scallions, leeks, nor onions in our
gardens, by the authority of Thestilis in Virgil,--and of the millers, who
are generally thieves,--and of the bakers, who are little better. Is this
small saving or frugality? Besides the mischief and damage of the
field-mice, the decay of barns, and the destruction usually made by
weasels and other vermin.

Of corn in the blade you may make good green sauce of a light concoction
and easy digestion, which recreates the brain and exhilarates the animal
spirits, rejoiceth the sight, openeth the appetite, delighteth the taste,
comforteth the heart, tickleth the tongue, cheereth the countenance,
striking a fresh and lively colour, strengthening the muscles, tempers the
blood, disburdens the midriff, refresheth the liver, disobstructs the
spleen, easeth the kidneys, suppleth the reins, quickens the joints of the
back, cleanseth the urine-conduits, dilates the spermatic vessels, shortens
the cremasters, purgeth the bladder, puffeth up the genitories, correcteth
the prepuce, hardens the nut, and rectifies the member. It will make you
have a current belly to trot, fart, dung, piss, sneeze, cough, spit, belch,
spew, yawn, snuff, blow, breathe, snort, sweat, and set taut your Robin,
with a thousand other rare advantages. I understand you very well, says
Pantagruel; you would thereby infer that those of a mean spirit and shallow
capacity have not the skill to spend much in a short time. You are not the
first in whose conceit that heresy hath entered. Nero maintained it, and
above all mortals admired most his uncle Caius Caligula, for having in a
few days, by a most wonderfully pregnant invention, totally spent all the
goods and patrimony which Tiberius had left him.

But, instead of observing the sumptuous supper-curbing laws of the Romans
--to wit, the Orchia, the Fannia, the Didia, the Licinia, the Cornelia,
the Lepidiana, the Antia, and of the Corinthians--by the which they were
inhibited, under pain of great punishment, not to spend more in one year
than their annual revenue did amount to, you have offered up the oblation
of Protervia, which was with the Romans such a sacrifice as the paschal
lamb was amongst the Jews, wherein all that was eatable was to be eaten,
and the remainder to be thrown into the fire, without reserving anything
for the next day. I may very justly say of you, as Cato di