There are three Marks by which every one may know whether the Flesh be good. The first is by its pure White and brisk Red Colour, when Raw. The second is by its continuing its firmness, being plump or swelled when boyled, having a brisk and lively Taste, and that after eating it feels easie and pleasant in the Stomach. The third is, by its taking Salt well; for if your Flesh be free from Heat and Surfeits, and not over-fed, which charges the Body with gross Phlegm; as also if it be not kept longer after it is killed (as indeed it ought not) than it be thought to be cold, before it is salted; all such Flesh will take Salt greedily, and it will not only keep longer from Putrifaction, but it will eat much sweeter, and breed better Nourishment. For, if any sort of Cattel be over-fed, surfeited, or any other Inconveniency attends them, and they be killed before they have recovered themselves of those Injuries; or if it be in _August_, _September_, or _October_, this Flesh will not take Salt so well as the former, neither will the Salt preserve it half so long from Corruption. Also, as it is before-mentioned, if Flesh be kept too long after it be killed, such Flesh will not receive Salt into it, as other will, which is salted as soon as it is cold: For by keeping it does certainly lose its pure Spirituous Quality, so that the Body becomes heavy, gross, and dull. Does not the Life and Spirits of most sorts of Food waste and evaporate by keeping, if there be not a proper way of Preservation used? If Flesh, by any Inconveniencies, have lost its pure lively Spirits and Vertue, Salt then hath no power to preserve such Flesh from Putrifaction: For Salt cannot preserve the Body from Corruption, but by vertue of the pure subtile Spirits, which are a pleasant Habitation for the Salt to incorporate it self with: For Salt will not preserve Flesh from Putrifaction, any longer than the Vertue and Power of the Spirit does continue, as it does appear by all salted Flesh and Fish: For through length of time the Spirits become either suffocated, or evaporated, and then it presently falls into Putrifaction: And yet this same Flesh does still continue Salt; for Salt does not destroy and purge the Flesh from its Corruption, but incorporates it self with the Essential Spirits, and those two do as it were tie or hold the corrupt Part Captive, till the Spirit and Life of the Flesh be spent or wasted, and then the Flesh falls into Putrifaction, which cannot be recovered, eitheir by Salting, or any other Art, to its first state: But if the Salt had purged or destroyed the Humidity and gross part, then there would have been no Room nor Matter for Putrifaction, and then it would have continued firm and sound, as many other things do, which are freed from that gross humid Matter from which Putrifaction does proceed. Therefore Flesh is naturally the most unclean of all Food, it being of a gross phlegmatick Nature; and if Care be not taken, and Order and Temperance observed in