they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterwards sent down to their serving-men and waiters. "The gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort; or, peradventure, with one or two, or three at the most, when they have no strangers. And yet their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, besides such as is left at their masters' boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the second time, which, nevertheless, is often seen, generally in venison, lamb, or some especial dish whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed when it is cold. "At such times as the merchants do make their ordinary or voluntary feasts, it is a world to see what great provision is made of all manner of delicate meats from every quarter of the country, wherein, beside that they are often comparable herein to the nobility of the land, they will seldom regard any thing that the butcher usually killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come in place. In such cases, also, _geliffes_ 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, codiniacs, marmalades, sugar-bread, ginger-bread, florentines, wild-fowl, venison of all sorts, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar, (which Pliny calls _mel ex arundinibus_, a device not common nor greatly used in old times 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, Portingale, and the Indies, to furnish our banquets, I speak not, wherein our _Mures_, of no less force, and to be had about Crosby Ravenswath, do now begin to have place.