FOOTNOTES:

PORTRAIT OF JOHN PARKINSON FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE “PARADISUS” (1629)

FOOTNOTES:[88]SeeTheatrum Botanicum, p. 609.[89]Both John Tradescant and his son were gardeners to Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. John Tradescant the elder is said by Anthony à Wood to have been a Fleming or a Dutchman, but this is doubtful. The name is neither Flemish nor Dutch but probably English, and in the inscription on his tomb in Lambeth Churchyard he and his son are described as “both gardeners to the rose and lily queen.” This was Henrietta Maria. Parkinson in hisParadisusspeaks of him as “that painfull industrious searcher and lover of all nature’s varieties.” Tradescant accompanied Sir Dudley Digges on his voyage round the North Cape to Archangel, and on his return wrote an account of the plants he had found in Russia—the earliest extant record of plants in that part. It is interesting to note that in this he compares the soil of Russia to that of Norfolk. In 1620 Tradescant joined an expedition against the Algerine corsairs as a gentleman volunteer, and he also accompanied the Duke of Buckingham (George Villiers), to whom he had formerly been gardener, on the ill-fated expedition to La Rochelle. On Buckingham’s death he entered the royal service, and probably at this time established his well-known physic garden and museum at Lambeth. The house was called Tradescant’s ark. There are three unsigned and undated portraits of the elder Tradescant in the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford.[90]It also figures on the title-page of Parkinson’sTheatrum Botanicum.[91]“Now schalle I seye you semyingly of Countries and Yles that bea beyonde the Countries that I have spoken of. Wherefore I seye you in pessynge be [by] the Lord of Cathaye toward the high Ynde and towards Bacharye, men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldhille, that is a fair contree. And there growethe a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren Gowrdes, and when thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, and men fynden with inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lamb withouten wolle. And men eten both the Frut and the Best, and that is a great Marveylle. Of that Frute I have eaten, alle thoghe it were wonderfulle but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his Werkes.”[92]See Herodotus (lib. iii. cap. 106); Ctesias (Indica); Strabo (lib. xv. cap. 21); TheophrastusDe Historia Plantarum(lib. iv. cap. 4); Pliny,Naturalis Historia.[93]“Master Tuggie,” who lived in Westminster, was a famous grower of gilliflowers. See p.116.[94]White lavender was a favourite with Queen Henrietta Maria.[95]This he tells us at the end of the preface to theParadisus. “Thus have I shewed you both the occasion and scope of this Worke, and herein have spent my time, paines, and charge, which if well accepted, I shall thinke well employed, and may the sooner hasten the fourth Part, A Garden of Simples; which will be quiet no longer at home, then that it can bring his Master newes of faire weather for the iourney.”[96]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 601.[97]Ibid., p. 43.[98]Ibid., p. 1405.[99]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 144.[100]Ibid., p. 281.[101]Ibid., p. 265.[102]Ibid., p. 384.[103]Ibid., p. 181.[104]Ibid., p. 422. Of this “Indian Spanish Counter poyson” Parkinson gives us the further interesting information that “the Indians doe not eate the bodies of those they have slaine by their poysoned arrowes untill they have lyen three or foure dayes with their wounds washed with the juice of this herbe; which rendereth them tender and fit to be eaten which before were hard.”[105]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 767.[106]Ibid., p. 1397.[107]Ibid., p. 1259.[108]Ibid., p. 410.[109]Ibid., p. 518.[110]Ibid., p. 1330.[111]Ibid., p. 128.[112]Ibid., p. 74.[113]Ibid., p. 54.[114]Ibid., p. 1016.[115]Ibid., p. 63.[116]Ibid., p. 95.[117]Theatrum Botanicum, pp. 135, 191, 210, 233, 275, 408, 492, 613, 652, 693, 700, 790, 1075.[118]Ibid., p. 559.[119]Ibid., p. 700.[120]Ibid., p. 1075.[121]Ibid., p. 210.[122]Ibid., pp. 888 and 913.[123]Ibid., p. 144.

[88]SeeTheatrum Botanicum, p. 609.

[89]Both John Tradescant and his son were gardeners to Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. John Tradescant the elder is said by Anthony à Wood to have been a Fleming or a Dutchman, but this is doubtful. The name is neither Flemish nor Dutch but probably English, and in the inscription on his tomb in Lambeth Churchyard he and his son are described as “both gardeners to the rose and lily queen.” This was Henrietta Maria. Parkinson in hisParadisusspeaks of him as “that painfull industrious searcher and lover of all nature’s varieties.” Tradescant accompanied Sir Dudley Digges on his voyage round the North Cape to Archangel, and on his return wrote an account of the plants he had found in Russia—the earliest extant record of plants in that part. It is interesting to note that in this he compares the soil of Russia to that of Norfolk. In 1620 Tradescant joined an expedition against the Algerine corsairs as a gentleman volunteer, and he also accompanied the Duke of Buckingham (George Villiers), to whom he had formerly been gardener, on the ill-fated expedition to La Rochelle. On Buckingham’s death he entered the royal service, and probably at this time established his well-known physic garden and museum at Lambeth. The house was called Tradescant’s ark. There are three unsigned and undated portraits of the elder Tradescant in the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford.

[90]It also figures on the title-page of Parkinson’sTheatrum Botanicum.

[91]“Now schalle I seye you semyingly of Countries and Yles that bea beyonde the Countries that I have spoken of. Wherefore I seye you in pessynge be [by] the Lord of Cathaye toward the high Ynde and towards Bacharye, men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldhille, that is a fair contree. And there growethe a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren Gowrdes, and when thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, and men fynden with inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lamb withouten wolle. And men eten both the Frut and the Best, and that is a great Marveylle. Of that Frute I have eaten, alle thoghe it were wonderfulle but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his Werkes.”

[92]See Herodotus (lib. iii. cap. 106); Ctesias (Indica); Strabo (lib. xv. cap. 21); TheophrastusDe Historia Plantarum(lib. iv. cap. 4); Pliny,Naturalis Historia.

[93]“Master Tuggie,” who lived in Westminster, was a famous grower of gilliflowers. See p.116.

[94]White lavender was a favourite with Queen Henrietta Maria.

[95]This he tells us at the end of the preface to theParadisus. “Thus have I shewed you both the occasion and scope of this Worke, and herein have spent my time, paines, and charge, which if well accepted, I shall thinke well employed, and may the sooner hasten the fourth Part, A Garden of Simples; which will be quiet no longer at home, then that it can bring his Master newes of faire weather for the iourney.”

[96]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 601.

[97]Ibid., p. 43.

[98]Ibid., p. 1405.

[99]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 144.

[100]Ibid., p. 281.

[101]Ibid., p. 265.

[102]Ibid., p. 384.

[103]Ibid., p. 181.

[104]Ibid., p. 422. Of this “Indian Spanish Counter poyson” Parkinson gives us the further interesting information that “the Indians doe not eate the bodies of those they have slaine by their poysoned arrowes untill they have lyen three or foure dayes with their wounds washed with the juice of this herbe; which rendereth them tender and fit to be eaten which before were hard.”

[105]Theatrum Botanicum, p. 767.

[106]Ibid., p. 1397.

[107]Ibid., p. 1259.

[108]Ibid., p. 410.

[109]Ibid., p. 518.

[110]Ibid., p. 1330.

[111]Ibid., p. 128.

[112]Ibid., p. 74.

[113]Ibid., p. 54.

[114]Ibid., p. 1016.

[115]Ibid., p. 63.

[116]Ibid., p. 95.

[117]Theatrum Botanicum, pp. 135, 191, 210, 233, 275, 408, 492, 613, 652, 693, 700, 790, 1075.

[118]Ibid., p. 559.

[119]Ibid., p. 700.

[120]Ibid., p. 1075.

[121]Ibid., p. 210.

[122]Ibid., pp. 888 and 913.

[123]Ibid., p. 144.

“Come into the fields then, and as you come along the streets, cast your eyes upon the weeds as you call them that grow by the walls and under the hedge-sides.”—W. Coles,The Art of Simpling, 1656.

The later seventeenth-century herbals are marked by a return to the belief in the influence upon herbs of the heavenly bodies, but it is a travesty rather than a reflection of the ancient astrological lore. The most notable exponent of this debased lore was the infamous Nicholas Culpeper, in whom, nevertheless, the poor people in the East End seem to have had a boundless faith. It is impossible to look at the portrait of that light-hearted rogue without realising that there must have been something extraordinarily attractive about the man who was the last to set up publicly as an astrologer and herb doctor. He was the son of a clergyman who had a living somewhere in Surrey. After a brief time at Cambridge he was apprenticed to an apothecary near St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and shortly afterwards set up for himself in Red Lion Street, Spitalfields, as an astrologer and herbalist. Culpeper was a staunch Roundhead and fought in at least one battle. All through the war, however, he continued his practice and he acquired a great popularity in the East End of London. In 1649 he issued hisPhysical Directory, which was a translation of theLondon Dispensatory. This drew down on him the fury of the College of Physicians, and the book was virulently attacked in a broadside issued in 1652, entitled “A farm in Spittlefields where all the knick-knacks of astrology are exposed to open sale.” By this time his works were enjoying an enormous sale. No fewer than five editions of hisEnglish Physician Enlargedappearedbefore 1698, and it was reissued even as late as 1802 and again in 1809. There is a vivid description of Culpeper inThe Gentleman’s Magazinefor May 1797:—

“He was of a middle stature, of a spare lean body, dark complexion, brown hair, rather long visage, piercing quick eyes, very active and nimble. Though of an excellent wit, sharp fancy, admirable conception and of an active understanding, yet occasionally inclined to melancholy, which was such an extraordinary enemy to him that sometimes wanting company he would seem like a dead man. He was very eloquent, a good orator though very conceited and full of jest, which was so inseparable to him that in his most serious writings, he would mingle matters of levity and extremely please himself in so doing. Though his family possessed considerable property it appears he was exceedingly restricted in his pecuniary concerns, which probably was the cause of his early leaving the University, as he observes; though his mother lived till he was twenty-three years of age and left him well provided, yet he was cheated or nearly spent all his fortune in the outset of life. Another author observes it is most true that he was always subject to a consumption of the purse, notwithstanding the many ways he had to assist him. His patrimony was also chiefly consumed at the University. Indeed he had a spirit so far above the vulgar, that he condemned and scorned riches any other way than to make them serviceable to him. He was as free of his purse as of his pen.... He acknowledged he had many pretended friends, but he was rather prejudiced than bettered by them, for, when he most stood in need of their friendship and assistance they most of all deceived him.”

Culpeper wrote a number of medical works which do not concern us here, but his name will always be associated with his Herbal. His reason for having written it he affirms to be that, of the operation of herbs by the stars he found few authors had written, “and those as full of nonsense and contradictionas an Egg is full of meat. This not being pleasing and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience and took a voyage to visit my Mother Nature, by whose advice together with the help of Dr. Diligence I at last obtained my desire and, being warned by Mr. Honesty (a stranger in our days) to publish it to the world, I have done it.” It is impossible to read any part of this absurd book without a vision arising of the old rogue standing at the street corner and not only collecting but holding an interested crowd of the common folk by the sort of arguments which they not only understand but appreciate. In his preface he warns his readers against the false copies of his book “that are printed of that letter the small Bibles are printed with ... there being twenty or thirty gross errors in every sheet.” He is withering in his criticism of those who quote old authors as authorities. “They say Reason makes a man differ from a beast; if that be true, pray what are they that instead of Reason for their judgment quote old authors?” In his preface, as throughout his book, he affirms his belief in the connection between herbs and stars. Diseases, he asserts, vary according to the motions of the stars, “and he that would know the reason for the operation of the herbs must look up as high as the stars. It is essential to find out what planet has caused the disease and then by what planet the afflicted part of the body is governed. In the treatment of the disease the influence of the planet must be opposed by herbs under the influence of another planet, or in some cases by sympathy, that is each planet curing its own disease.” Elsewhere he directs that plants must always be picked according to the planet that is in the ascendant. Culpeper asserts that herbs should be dried in the sun,[124]his ingenious reasoning beingthis:—“For if the sun draw away the virtues of the herb it must needs do the like by hay, which the experience of every farmer will explode for a notable piece of nonsense.” He also pours scorn on those who say that the sap does not rise in the winter. Here his argument is even more remarkable, and yet one cannot help realising how effectual it would be with the class of folk with whom he dealt. “If the sap fall into the roots in the fall of the leaf and lies there all the winter then must the root grow all the winter, but the root grows not at all in the winter as experience teaches, but only in the summer. If you set an apple kernel in the spring you shall find the root to grow to a pretty bigness in the summer and be not a whit bigger next spring. What doth the sap do in the root all the winter that while? Pick straws? ’Tis as rotten as a rotten post.” He gives as his own version of what happens to the sap that “when the sun declines from the tropic of cancer, the sap begins to congeal both in root and branch. When he touches the tropic of capricorn and ascends to uswards it begins to wax thin again.” One cannot help suspecting that Culpeper knew perfectly well what nonsense he was talking, but that he also realised how remunerative such nonsense was and how much his customers were impressed by it. In his dissertation on wormwood onefeels that he was writing with his tongue in his cheek, especially in the conclusion, which is as follows:—

“He that reads this and understands what he reads hath a jewel of more worth than a diamond. He that understands it not is as little fit to give physick. There lies a key in these words, which will unlock (if it be turned by a wise hand) the cabinet of physic. I have delivered it as plain as I durst ... thus shall I live when I am dead. And thus I leave it to the world, not caring a farthing whether they like it or dislike it. The grave equals all men and therefore shall equal me with all princes.... Then the ill tongue of a prating fellow or one that hath more tongue than wit or more proud than honest shall never trouble me. Wisdom is justified of her children. And so much for wormwood.”

Text of verse: View in this face, whom Heaven snatcht from hence, Our Phisicall and Starrie Influence; Had not Great Culpeper such order toke, In spight of Fate to Live still in this Booke.

NICHOLAS CULPEPER FROM “THE ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED”

Less popular than Culpeper’s numerous writings, but far more attractive and altogether of a different stamp, are Coles’s two books,Adam in EdenandThe Art of Simpling. The title of the latter runs thus:—

“The Art of Simpling. An Introduction to the Knowledge and Gathering of Plants. Wherein the Definitions, Divisions, Places, Descriptions, Differences, Names, Vertues, Times of flourishing and gathering, Uses, Temperatures, Signatures and Appropriations of Plants are methodically laid down. London. Printed by J. G. for Nath. Brook at the Angell in Cornhill. 1656.”

The preface is quaint and so typical of the spirit of the later seventeenth-century herbals that I transcribe a good deal of it:—

“What a rare happiness was it for Matthiolus that famous Simpler, to live in those days wherein (as he himself reports) so many Emperors, Kings, Arch-Dukes, Cardinalls and Bishops did favour his Endeavour, and plentifully reward him! Whereas in our times the Art of Simpling is so farre from being rewarded, that it is grown contemptible and he is accounted a simple fellow,that pretends to have any skill therein. Truly it is to be lamented that the men of these times which pretend to so much Light should goe the way to put out their owne Eyes, by trampling upon that which should preserve them, to the great discouragement of those that have any mind to bend their Studies this way. Notwithstanding, for the good of my Native Countrey, which everyone is obliged to serve upon all occasions of advantage and in pitty to such Mistakers, I have painfully endeavoured plainly to demonstrate the way of attaining this necessary Art, and the usefulnesse of it, in hopes that this Embryo thrown thus into the wide world, will fall into the Lap of some worthy persons that will cherish it, though I knew not any to whose protection I might commend it. However I have adventured it abroad, and to expresse my reall affection to the publick good have in it communicated such Notions, as I have gathered, either from the reading of Severall Authors, or by conferring sometimes with Scholars, and sometimes with Countrey people; To which I have added some Observations of mine Owne, never before published: Most of which I am confident are true, and if there be any that are not so, yet they are pleasant.”

There is something very attractive in the last inconsequent remark!

Coles deals mercilessly with old Culpeper. “Culpeper,” he says, “(a man now dead and therefore I shall speak of him as modestly as I can, for were he alive I should be more straight with him), was a man very ignorant in the forme of Simples. Many Books indeed he hath tumbled over, and transcribed as much out of them as he thought would serve his turne (though many times he were therein mistaken) but added very little of his own.” He even comments on the fact that either Culpeper or his Printer cannot spell aright—“sure he or the Printer had not learned to spell.”

The Doctrine of Signatures he accepts unquestioningly. “Though Sin and Sathan have plunged mankinde into anOcean of Infirmities Yet the mercy of God which is over all his Workes Maketh Grasse to grow upon the Mountaines and Herbs for the use of Men and hath not onely stemped upon them (as upon every man) a distinct forme, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a Man may read even in legible Characters the Use of them. Heart Trefoyle is so called not onely because the Leafe is Triangular like the Heart of a Man, but also because each leafe contains the perfect Icon of an Heart and that in its proper colour viz a flesh colour. Hounds tongue hath a forme not much different from its name which will tye the Tongues of Hounds so that they shall not barke at you: if it be laid under the bottomes of ones feet. Wallnuts bear the whole Signature of the Head, the outwardmost green barke answerable to the thick skin whereunto the head is covered, and a salt made of it is singularly good for wounds in that part, as the Kernell is good for the braines, which it resembles being environed with a shell which imitates the Scull, and then it is wrapped up againe in a silken covering somewhat representing thePia Mater.”

Of those plants that have no signatures he warns the reader not to conclude hastily that therefore they have no use. “We must cast ourselves,” he says, “with great Courage and Industry (as some before us have done) upon attempting the vertues of them, which are yet undiscovered. For man was not brought into the world to live like an idle Loyterer or Truant, but to exercise his minde in those things, which are therefore in some measure obscure and intricate, yet not so much as otherwise they would have been, it being easier to adde than invent at first.” He then gives his own curious but naïvely interesting theory of plants “commonly accounted useless and unprofitable.” “They would not be without their use,” he argues, “if they were good for nothing else but to exercise the Industry of Man to weed them out who, had he nothing to struggle with, the fire of his Spirit would be halfe extinguished in the Flesh.” After pointing out that weeding them out is in itself excellent exercise, he proceeds:—“But further why may not poysonous plantsdraw to them all the maligne juice and nourishment that the other may be more pure and refined, as well as Toads and other poysonous Serpents licke the venome from the Earth?... So have I seen some people when they have burned their fingers to goe and burne them again to fetch out the fire. And why may not one poyson fetch out another as well as fire fetch out fire?” “For should all things be known at once,” he wisely concludes, “Posterity would have nothing left wherewith to gratifie themselves in their owne discoveries, which is a great encouragement to active and quick Wits, to make them enquire into those things which are hid from the eyes of those which are dull and stupid.”

Coles’sArt of Simplingis the only herbal which devotes a chapter to herbs useful for animals—“Plants as have operation upon the bodies of Bruit Beasts.” This chapter is full of curious folk lore. He gives the old beliefs that a toad poisoned by a spider will cure itself with a plantain leaf; that weasels when about to encounter a serpent eat rue; that an ass when it feels melancholy eats asplenium; that wild goats wounded by arrows cure themselves with dittany; that the swallow uses celandine (“I would have this purposely planted for them,” he adds); that linnet and goldfinch (and have any birds brighter eyes?) constantly repair their own and their young one’s eyesight with eyebright; that if loosestrife is thrown between two oxen when they are fighting they will part presently, and being tied about their necks it will keep them from fighting; that cocks which have been fed on garlick are “most stout to fight and so are Horses”; that the serpent so hates the ash tree “that she will not come nigh the shadow of it, but she delights in Fennel very much, which she eates to cleer her eyesight;” that, if a garden is infested with moles, garlic or leeks will make them “leap out of the ground presently.” Perhaps the most remarkable effects of herbs are the two following. “Adders tongue put into the left eare of any Horse will make him fall downe as if he were dead, and when it is taken out againe, he becomes morelively than he was before.” And “if Asses chance to feed much upon Hemlock, they will fall so fast asleep that they will seeme to be dead, in so much that some thinking them to be dead indeed have flayed off their skins, yet after the Hemlock had done operating they have stirred and wakened out of their sleep, to the griefe and amazement of the owners.”

There is one chapter—“Of plants used in and against Witchcraft”—in which, amongst other things, we learn that the ointment that witches use is made of the fat of children, dug up from their graves, and mixed with the juice of smallage, wolfsbane and cinquefoil and fine wheat flour; that mistletoe, angelica, etc. were regarded as being of such sovereign power against witches that they were worn round the neck as amulets. Also, that in order to prevent witches from entering their houses the common people used to gather elder leaves on the last day of April and affix them to their doors and windows. “I doe not desire any to pin their Faiths upon these reports,” says Coles, “but only let them know there are such which they may believe as they please.” “However,” he concludes, “there is no question but very wonderful effects may be wrought by the Vertues which are enveloped within the compasse of the green mantles wherewith many Plants are adorned.”

Coles, nevertheless, treats with scorn, and by arguments peculiarly his own, the old belief in the connection between the stars and herbs. “It [the study of herbs] is a subject as antient as the Creation, yea more antient than the Sunne or the Moon, or Starres, they being created on the fourth day whereas Plants were the third. Thus did God even at first confute the folly of those Astrologers who goe about to maintaine that all vegetables in their growth are enslaved to a necessary and unavoidable dependence on the influences of the starres; whereas Plants were even when Planets were not.” In another passage, however, he writes, “Though I admit not of Master Culpeper’s Astrologicall way of every Planets Dominion over Plants, yet I conceive that the Sunne and Moon have generall influence uponthem, the one for Heat the other for Moisture; wherein the being of Plants consists.”

The most attractive parts of theArt of Simplingare the chapters devoted to the “Joys of Gardening.” Coles tells us that “A house, though otherwise beautifull, if it hath no garden is more like a prison than a house.” Of what he has to say about gardens and the happiness to be found in gardening I quote much because it is all so pleasant.

“That there is no place more pleasant [than a garden] may appear from God himselfe, who after he had made Man, planted the Garden of Eden, and put him therein, that he might contemplate the many wonderful Ornaments wherewith Omnipotency had bedecked his Mother Earth.... As for recreation, if a man be wearied with over-much study (for study is a weariness to the Flesh as Solomon by experience can tell you) there is no better place in the world to recreate himself than a Garden, there being no sence but may be delighted therein. If his sight be obfuscated and dull, as it may easily be, with continuall poring, there is no better way to relieve it, than to view the pleasant greennesse of Herbes, which is the way that Painters use, when they have almost spent their sight by their most earnest contemplation of brighter objects: neither doe they onely feed the Eyes but comfort the wearied Braine with fragrant smells. The Eares also (which are called the Daughters of Musick, because they delight therein) have their recreation by the pleasant noise of the warbling notes, which the chaunting birds accent forth from amongst the murmuring Leaves....”

“Of the profits” [of a garden] he says, “First for household occasions, for there is not a day passeth over our heads but we have of one thing or other that groweth within their circumference. We cannot make so much as a little good Pottage without Herbes, which give an admirable relish and make them wholsome for our Bodies.... Besides this inestimable Profit there is another not much inferior to it, and that is the wholsome exercise a man may use in it.... If Gentlemen which havelittle else to doe, would be ruled by me, I would advise them to spend their spare time in their gardens, either in digging, setting, weeding or the like, then which there is no better way in the world to preserve health. If a man want an Appetite to his Victuals the Smell of the Earth new turned up by digging with a spade will procure it,[125]and if he be inclined to a Consumption it will recover him.

“Gentlewomen if the ground be not too wet may doe themselves much good by kneeling upon a Cushion and weeding. And thus both sexes might divert themselves from Idlenesse and evill company, which oftentimes prove the ruine of many ingenious people. But perhaps they may think it a disparagement to the condition they are in; truly none at all if it were but put in practise. For we see that those fashions which sometimes seem ridiculous if once taken up by the gentry cease to be so.” He quotes the Emperor Diocletian, who “left for a season the whole Government of the Empire and forsaking the Court betook himself to a meane House with a Garden adjoyning, wherein with his owne hands, he both sowed set and weeded the Herbes of his Garden which kinde of life so pleased him, that he was hardly intreated to resume the Government of the Empire.” “By this time,” he concludes, “I hope you will think it no dishonour to follow the steps of our grandsire Adam, who is commonly pictured with a Spade in his hand, to march through the Quarters of your Garden with the like Instrument, and there to rectify all the disorders thereof, to procure as much as in you lyes the recovery of the languishing Art of Simpling, which did it but appeare in lively colours, I am almost perswaded it would so affect you that you would be much taken with it. There is no better way to understand the benefit of it, than by being acquainted with Herballs and Herbarists and by putting this Gentle and ingenious Exercise in practise, that so thispart of knowledge as well as others, may receive that esteem and advancement that is due to it, to the banishment of Barbarisme and Ignorance which begin again to prevaile against it.”

The real descendants, so to speak, of the herbal are the quaint old still-room books, many of which survive not only in museums and public libraries, but also in country houses. These still-room books, which are a modest branch of literature in themselves, are more nearly akin to herbals than to cookery books, with which they are popularly associated. For they are full of the old herb lore and of the uses of herbs in homely medicines. It must be remembered that even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries every woman was supposed to have some knowledge of both the preparation and the medicinal use of herbs and simples. When the herbal proper ceased and the first books on botany began to make their appearance the old herb lore did not fall into disuse, and the popularity of the still-room books in which it was preserved may be gathered from the fact that one of the first of these to be printed—A Choice Manual of rare and select Secrets in Physick & Chirurgerie Collected and practised by the Countesse of Kent[126](late dec’d)—went through nineteen editions. There are some old books which merely inspire awe, for one feels that they have always lived in dignified seclusion on library shelves and have been handled only by learned scholars. But there are others whose leaves are so be-thumbed and torn that from constant association with human beings they seem to have become almost human themselves. Of this type are these old still-room books. They were an integral part of daily life and their worn pages bear mute witness to the fact.

A small still-room

FRONTISPIECE OF “THE CURIOUS DESTILLATORY,” BY THOMAS SHIRLEY, M.D., PHYSICIAN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY (1677)

One of the most interesting is the Fairfax still-room book.[127]Its first owner was probably Mary Cholmeley, born during theclosing years of Elizabeth’s reign, and married in 1626 to the Rev. the Hon. Henry Fairfax (uncle of the great Parliamentarian General—Lord Fairfax).[128]In common with the majority of MS. still-room books, the Fairfax volume contains much that has no immediate connection with a still-room, but is full of human interest. It is a curious medley of culinary recipes, homely cures, housewifely arts such as bleaching, dyeing, brewing and preserving, to say nothing of hastily scribbled little notes regarding lost linen (including no fewer than “xxiii handkerchares!”) and the number of fowls, etc., in the poultry-yard. This last entry, which runs all down one side of a page, is as follows: “I Kapon, XVI Torkies, XVIII dowkes, IIII henes, II cokes, X chekins, X giese, IV sowes.”

But the most charming entry of all is: “A note of Mistress Barbara her lessons on ye virginalle which she hath learned and can play them,” followed by a list of songs, the majority of which have the entry “Mr. Bird” beside them. William Bird was organist to Queen Elizabeth, and he presumably was “Mistress Barbara’s” music-master. She apparently also had lessons from Dr. Bull, then at the height of his fame, for his name appears in connection with some of the items. Amongst the songs we find “My trew Love is to ye grene Wood gon,” and there are quite a number of dances—pavanes and courantes—which she played. One feels very sure that “Mistress Barbara” was a fascinating person, but she could not have been more lovable than her sister Mary, who married Henry Fairfax. A love-letter, written in Charles I.’s reign, is doubtless quite out of place in a book on old herbals, but I cannot refrain from quoting the following, written by Mary to her husband about six years after their marriage, because it very clearly reveals the character of one of the many types of women who wrote these still-room books.

“My ever dearest love,“I received a letter and horse from Long on Thursday (Jan. 31) and will use meine [endeavour] to send Procter’s horse to Denton. I did nott so much rejoys att thy safe passage as at that Bleised and al suficiente gide whoss thou art, and whom I know thou truely sarves yt hath for a small time parted us, and I fearmly hope will give us a joyfull meeting. Dear heart, take eassy jernays and preferr thy owne heilth before all other worldly respects whatsoever.... I pray yubeg a blessing for us all, for I must needs comitt yuto his gracious protection yt will never fail us nor forsake us. Thine ever,“Mary Fairfax.“Ashton, February 2, 1632.”

“My ever dearest love,

“I received a letter and horse from Long on Thursday (Jan. 31) and will use meine [endeavour] to send Procter’s horse to Denton. I did nott so much rejoys att thy safe passage as at that Bleised and al suficiente gide whoss thou art, and whom I know thou truely sarves yt hath for a small time parted us, and I fearmly hope will give us a joyfull meeting. Dear heart, take eassy jernays and preferr thy owne heilth before all other worldly respects whatsoever.... I pray yubeg a blessing for us all, for I must needs comitt yuto his gracious protection yt will never fail us nor forsake us. Thine ever,

“Mary Fairfax.

“Ashton, February 2, 1632.”

I quote only three recipes from this attractive MS.: “A Bath for Melancholy,” “Balles for the face” and “For them theyr speech faileth.”

“To make a bath for Melancholy. Take Mallowes, pellitory of the wall, of each three handfulls; Camomell flowers, Mellilot flowers, of each one handfull; hollyhocks, two handfulls; Isop one greate handfull, senerick seede one ounce, and boil them in nine gallons of Water untill they come to three, then put in a quart of new milke and go into it bloud warme or somthing warmer.”“Balles for the face. Take greate Allecant reasons [raisins] a quarter of a pounde, stone them but wash them not and beate them in a morter very fine, take as many almonds, not Jordans, but of ye comon sort and blanch them and drye them in a cloth very well and beate them in a stone morter also very fine, when you have done thus to them bothe, mingle them bothe together and beate them againe, and putt to it half a quarter of a pounde of browne leavened bread, wheaten bread, and beate them altogeather and mingle them well togeather and then take it and make it in little balles and then wash yor face at night withone of them in fayre water. Yf you will have this only to wash yor hands put in a little Venice soape but putt none of that in for youre face.”“For them theyr speech faileth. Take a handfull of ye cropps of Rosemary, a handfull of sage and a handfull of Isop and boile them in malmsey till it be soft, then put them into Lynen clothes and laye about the nape of the neck and the pulses of the armes as whott [hot] as it may be suffred daily, as it shal be thought mete and it will help it by God’s grace. For the same. Take staves acre and beate it and sowe it in a linnen cloth and make a bagg noe bigger than a beane; if he can chow it in his mouth lett hym, if not then lay it upon his tongue.”

“Balles for the face. Take greate Allecant reasons [raisins] a quarter of a pounde, stone them but wash them not and beate them in a morter very fine, take as many almonds, not Jordans, but of ye comon sort and blanch them and drye them in a cloth very well and beate them in a stone morter also very fine, when you have done thus to them bothe, mingle them bothe together and beate them againe, and putt to it half a quarter of a pounde of browne leavened bread, wheaten bread, and beate them altogeather and mingle them well togeather and then take it and make it in little balles and then wash yor face at night withone of them in fayre water. Yf you will have this only to wash yor hands put in a little Venice soape but putt none of that in for youre face.”

“For them theyr speech faileth. Take a handfull of ye cropps of Rosemary, a handfull of sage and a handfull of Isop and boile them in malmsey till it be soft, then put them into Lynen clothes and laye about the nape of the neck and the pulses of the armes as whott [hot] as it may be suffred daily, as it shal be thought mete and it will help it by God’s grace. For the same. Take staves acre and beate it and sowe it in a linnen cloth and make a bagg noe bigger than a beane; if he can chow it in his mouth lett hym, if not then lay it upon his tongue.”

To the modern mind the medical recipes to be found in these still-room books sound truly alarming, but inThe Lady Sedley her Receipt bookthey are not more so than the prescriptions which were contributed by the most eminent physicians of that day. In his paper[129]on this MS. Dr. Guthrie quotes many of these recipes, amongst them one from the famous Dr. Stephens,[130]so frequently quoted by Sir Kenelm Digby and in other still-room books of the period. In Lady Sedley’s book his recipe is introduced thus: “A copy to make the sovreigns’t water that ever was devised by man, which Dr. Stephens a physician of great cuning and of long experience did use and therewith did cure many great cases, and all was kept in secret until a little before his death; when the Archbishop of Canterbury got it from him.” Amongst the other contributors to this MS. were no fewer than three of the doctors who attended Charles II. in his last illness, and if they gave the king even in a mild form medicines resembling those we find in this book, Macaulay’s description that “they tortured him for some hours like an Indian at the stake” can hardly have been exaggerated.There is a “Receipt for Convulsion Fitts” from Sir Edward Greaves (the first physician to be created a baronet) consisting of peony roots, dead man’s skull, hoofs of asses, white amber and bezoar; and the famous Dr. Sydenham contributed a “Prescription for the head” in which, not content with the seventy-two ingredients of which Venice treacle consisted, he added Wormwood, orange peel, angelica and nutmeg. Another distinguished contributor to this MS. was the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth. A prescription for stone from Judge Ellis consisted of Venice turpentine distilled with various herbs and spices in small ale. It was to be made only in June and taken “three days before the full and three days before the change of the Moone” (incidentally a survival of Saxon moon lore), but the Duke of Monmouth’s prescription for the same complaint is quite different and is compounded of ripe haws and fennel roots distilled in white wine and taken with syrup of elder. Lady Sedley, the first owner, and presumably author of the book, was the wife of Sir Charles Sedley, one of Charles II.’s intimate friends and notorious for his mad pranks. Between her husband and her daughter her life must have been almost unbearable, and it is not surprising that the unfortunate woman ended her days in a mad-house.

Of the MS. still-room books in the British Museum undoubtedly the most interesting isMary Doggett: Her Book of Receipts, 1682.[131]On the first page is affixed a note: “This Mary Doggett was the wife of Doggett the Player who left a legacy of a yearly coat and badge to be rowed for.”[132]The MS. is beautifully written and contains an astonishing amount of information on every housewifely art, from washing “parti-coloured stockings” to making perfumes and “Sweete Baggs.” Indeed the reading of the headlines alone gives one some idea of the multifarious duties of a mistress of a largehouse in those days. We find—and I quote only a few—recipes “to make morello cherry cakes,” “apricock marmalett,” “to preserve Cherrys white,” “to candy oranges or lemons or any kind of sucketts,” “to preserve almonds,” “to preserve damsons,” “orange butter,” “pippin creame,” “to make molds for apricock Plumbs,” “apricock wine,” “to keep cherrys all the year,” “to make cowslip wine,” “cakes of clove gilly flowers,” “curran wine,” “grapes in jelly,” “cleer cakes of goosberys,” “fine cakes of lemons,” “to preserve Rasps whole,” “to make Lemon Creame,” “lemon Syllibub,” “orange biskett,” “cheese caks of oranges,” “to preserve pippins in slices,” “to make plumb biskett,” “to pickle Quinces,” “to preserve Wallnutts,” “to preserve double blew violetts for Salletts,” “to candy Double marygold, Roses, or any other flowers,” “to make good sorrell wine,” “sweet powders for linnen,” “to perfume gloves after the Spanish maner,” “to souse a pigg,” “Almond milk,” “to pickle cucumbers,” “drinks to cause sleep,” “snaile broth,” “plasters for bruises,” “to make pomades” and “past for the hands.” The receipts for “A Pomander,” for “Balme water,” “to dry roses for sweet powder,” and “a perfume for a sweet bagg” are particularly attractive, and I give them below.

“A Pomander. Take a quarter of an ounce of Civitt, a quarter and a half-quarter of an ounce of Ambergreese, not half a quarter of an ounce of ye Spiritt of Roses, 7 ounces of Benjamin, allmost a pound of Damask Rose buds cutt. Lay gumdragon in rose water and with it make up your Pomander, with beads as big as nutmegs and color ym with Lamb [sic] black; when you make ym up wash your hands wth oyle of Jasmin to smooth ym, then make ym have a gloss, this quantity will make seaven Braceletes.”

“A receipt for Balme. Take 6 or 7 handfulls of balme, cut it a little, put it in an Earthen pott wth a handfull of cowslip flowers, green or dry, half an ounce of Mace, a little bruised pow[d]er in ym, 4 quarts of strong ale, let ym stand a night toinfuse: in ye morning put it into your still, poure upon it a quart of brandy. Past up your Still; you may draw about 2 quarts of water. Sweeten it with Sugar to your Tast and tye up too pennyworth of Saffron in a ragg, put it into ye water and let it lye till it be colored. Squeeze it out and bottle it for your use.”

“To dry Roses for sweet powder. Take your Roses after they have layen 2 or 3 days on a Table, then put them into a dish and sett ym on a chafering dish of Charcole, keeping them stirred, and as you stir ym strew in some powder of orris, and when you see them pretty dry put them into a gally pot till you use them.”

“A perfume for a sweet bagg. Take half a pound of Cypress Roots, a pound of Orris, 3 quarters of a pound of Rhodium, a pound of Coriander Seed, 3 quarter of a pound of Calamus, 3 orange stick wth cloves, 2 ounces of Benjamin, and an ounce of Storax and 4 pecks of Damask Rose leaves, a peck of dryed sweet Marjerum, a pretty stick of Juniper shaved very thin, some lemon pele dryed and a stick of Brasill; let all these be powdered very grosely for ye first year and immediately put into your baggs; the next year pound and work it and it will be very good again.”

The “Countesse of Kent’s” still-room book, which was one of the first to be published, contains more recipes against the Plague than most, and with one of these we find the instruction that it must be taken three times, “for the first helpeth not.” Amongst much that is gruesome there is a pleasant recipe entitled “A comfortable cordial to cheer the heart,” which runs thus: “Take one ounce of conserve of gilliflowers, four grains of the best Musk, bruised as fine as flower, then put it into a little tin pot and keep it till you have need to make this cordial following: Viz.: Take the quantity of one Nutmeg out of your tin pot, put to it one spoonful of cinnamon water, and one spoonful of the sirrup of gillifloures, ambergreece, mix all these together and drink them in the morning, fasting three orfour hours, this is most comfortable.” Thechef d’œuvreof the collection, at least in the author’s opinion, is one introduced with this flourish, but it is too long for me to quote more than the comprehensive title:—“The Countesse of Kent’s powder, good against all malignant and pestilent diseases, French Pox, Small Pox, Measles, Plague, Pestilence, Malignant or Scarlet Feavers, good against melancholy, dejection of Spirits, twenty or thirty grains thereof being exhibited in a little warm Sack or Hartshorn Jelly to a Man and half as much or twelve grains to a Childe.”

Far more attractive than the volume which bears the “Countesse of Kent’s” name are the little-known books by Tryon. They are full of discourses and sermons, introduced at the most unexpected moments. Indeed, there are few subjects on which Tryon does not lecture his readers, from giving servants extra work on Sundays by having “greasy platters and Bloody-Bones more on Sunday than any other Day,” to sleeping in feather beds. It is interesting to find that women had already taken to smoking in the seventeenth century, and Tryon admonishes them thus:—“Nor is it become infrequent, for women also to smoak Tobacco. Tobacco being an Herb of Mars and Saturn, it hath its fiery Quality from Mars, and its Poysonous fulsome attractive Nature from Saturn: the common use of it in Pipes is very injurious to all sorts of people but more especially to the Female Sex.” Tryon seems to have been somewhat of a Socialist, and he takes great delight in commiserating “Lords, Aldermen, the Rich and the Great,” who are driven to “heartily envying those Jolley Swains, who feed only with Bread and Cheese, and trotting up to the knees in Dirt, do yet with lusty limbs, and vigorous stomach, and merry Hearts, and undisturbed Heads, whistle out more sollid joys than the others, with all their Wealth and State can purchase.”

The most famous of all still-room books was that written by Sir Kenelm Digby, the friend of Kings and philosophers and himself a man of science, a doctor, an occultist, a privateer anda herbalist. Indeed it would be impossible to catalogue his activities, and he has always been recognised as the typepar excellenceof the gifted amateur. Sir Kenelm was the elder son of the Digby who was one of the leaders in the Gunpowder Plot. Himself a man of European reputation, he numbered among his friends Bacon, Ben Jonson, Galileo, Descartes, Harvey and Cromwell. Queen Marie de’ Medici was only one of many women who fell in love with him, but his one love was his wife, one of the most beautiful women of her day—Venetia Anastasia Stanley, immortalised by Van Dyck and Ben Jonson. Sir Kenelm Digby was the intimate friend of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, and after the Restoration he was a prominent figure at the Court of Charles II. When the Royal Society was inaugurated in 1663, he was one of the Council, and his house in Covent Garden was a centre where all the wits, occultists and men of letters forgathered. Aubrey tells us that after the Restoration he lived “in the last faire house westward in the north portico of Covent Garden where my lord Denzill Hollis lived since. He had a laboratory there.”[133]One reads so much of the extravagances and excesses of Restoration days that it is all the pleasanter to remember the people of whom little has been written, the thousands of quiet folk who loved their homes and gardens and took delight in simple pleasures. It is of these people Sir Kenelm Digby’s book reminds us, and even the names of his recipes are soothing reading—syllabubs, hydromel, mead, quidannies, tansies, slipp-coat-cheeses, manchets, and so forth. Moreover, there is no savour of the shop in these recipes, the book being full rather of flowers and herbs. It is also very leisurely, and in these days that, too, is soothing. Time we frequently find measured thus:—“Whiles you can say the Miserere Psalm very slowly” or “about an Ave Maria while.” It takes us back to a simple old world when great ladies not only looked well to the ways of their households, but attended themselves to the more important domestic matters.Sir Kenelm collected these recipes assiduously from his friends, and each housekeeper’s pride in her speciality is very evident. To mention only a few of these, we find:—“Scotch Ale from my Lady Holmeby,” “A very pleasant drink of Apples,” “Master Webb’s Ale and Bragot,” “Apples in Gelly,” “To make Bisket,” “Sir Paul Neal’s way of making Cider,” “My Lord of St. Alban’s Cresme Fouettee,” “The Queen’s Barley Cream,” “To pickle capons my Lady Portland’s way,” “Pickled Champignons,” “A Flomery-Caudle,” “My Lord Hollis Hydromel,” “Master Corsellises Antwerp Meath,” “My own considerations for making of Meathe,” “Meathe from the Muscovian Ambassadors Steward,” “White Metheglin of my Lady Hungerford’s which is exceedingly praised,” “My Lord of Denbigh’s Almond March-pane,” “My Lord Lumley’s Pease-pottage,” “Pease of the seed, buds of Tulips,” “A soothing Quiddany or Gelly of the Cores of Quinces,” “Sack with clove gilly-flowers,” “My Lord of Carlile’s Sack-posset,” “To make a whip Syllabub,” “Sucket of Mallow-stalks,” “The Countess of Newport’s Cherry Wine.” We may forget the recipes themselves, but the memory of them is associated with the fragrance of gillifiowers, roses, cowslips, elder flowers, violets, thyme, marjoram and the like. I give but these few below, and I wish there were space for more; for not only are they excellent in themselves, but, in common with all those in Sir Kenelm Digby’s book, they give more, perhaps, of the atmosphere of the old still-rooms than is to be found in any other collection.

Back to Index Next