pie into which it degenerated, and which is one of the most firmly
established of American institutions. Then, as occasionally even
to day, indigestion counted as "a hiding of the Lord's face," and
a bilious attack as "the hand of the Lord laid heavily on one for
reproof and correction." Such "reproof and correction" would often
follow if the breakfasts of the Earl of Lincoln and his household
were of the same order as those of the Earl of Northumberland, in
whose house "the family rose at six and took breakfast at seven.
My Lord and Lady sat down to a repast of two pieces of salted
fish, and half a dozen of red herrings, with four fresh ones, or a
dish of sprats and a quart of beer and the same measure of wine ...
At other seasons, half a chine of mutton or of boiled beef, graced
the board. Capons at two-pence apiece and plovers (at Christmas),
were deemed too good for any digestion that was not carried on in
a noble stomach."

With the dropping of fasts and meager days, fish was seldom used,
and the Sunday morning breakfast of Queen Elizabeth and her
retinue in one of her "progresses" through the country, for which
three oxen and one hundred and forty geese were furnished, became
the standard, which did not alter for many generations. A diet
more utterly unsuited to the child who passed from one fit of
illness to another, could hardly be imagined, and the gloom
discoverable in portions of her work was as certainly dyspepsia as
she imagined it to be "the motion and power of ye Adversary."
Winthrop had encountered the same difficulty and with his usual
insight and common sense, wrote in his private dairy fifteen years
before he left England, "Sep: 8, 1612. ffinding that the variety
of meates drawes me on to eate more than standeth with my healthe
I have resolved not to eat of more than two dishes at any one