The Thracian women, that they might bear healthful, strong, and hardy children, ate nothing but milk and nettles, and the greatest dainties that the Lacedemonians had amongst them, was a certain kind of black pottage, that looked no better than melted pitch, and could not by computation stand in above three half-pence a gallon at the most. The Persians, that in their time were the best disciplined people on the earth, ate a little Nasturtium[B] with their bread; and that was all the victuals that this brave nation used, when they made conquest of the world. Artaxerxes, the brother of Cyrus, being overthrown in battle, was constrained in his flight to sit down with dry figs and barley-bread which upon proof he found so good, as he seriously lamented his misfortune, in having,--through the continual cloying of artificial dainties, wherewith he had been bred up,--been so long time a stranger to that great pleasure and delight, which natural and simple food yields, when it meets with true hunger. True it is, our stomach is a troublesome creditor, and ofttimes shamelessly exacts more than its due: but undoubtedly, if we were not partial, and corrupted by the allurements of that base content which dainties promise, we might easily quiet the grudgings and murmurings thereof. It’s not the stomach, I wis, which would rest apayed with that which is at hand; but the satisfaction of our capricious fancies, that makes us wear out our selves, and weary all the world besides with uncessant travel in the search of rarities, and in the compounding of new delicacies. If we were but half as wise as we ought to be, there need none of all this ado that we make, about this and that kind of Manchet, Dutch-bread, and French-bread: and I know not what new inventions are brought on foot, to make more business in the world; whereas with much less cost and trouble we might be much better served with that which grows at home, and is to be found ready in every thatched cottage. That which is most our own, and that which we therefore perhaps, fools as we be, most contemn in this kind,--barley-bread I mean,--is by all the old physicians, warranted for a most sound and healthful food. He that eats daily of it, say they, shall undoubtedly never be troubled with the gout in the feet.