Puslapio vaizdai
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than a hundred years after Tusser's didactics, one of the scenes is laid in a lady's laboratory, "with a fountain in it, some stills, and many shelves, with pots of porcelain and glasses;" and when the lady wishes to keep her attendant out of the way, she sends her there, saying

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To shift the oils in the perfuming room,

As in the several ranges you shall see

The old begin to wither. To do it well

Will take you up some hours, but 'tis a work

I oft perform myself.

And Tusser among "the Points of Housewifery united to the Comfort of Husbandry," includes good housewifely physic, as inculcated in these rhymes;

Good housewife provides ere an sickness do come,
Of sundry good things in her house to have some;
Good aqua composita, and vinegar tart,

Rose water, and treacle to comfort the heart;

Cold herbs in her garden for agues that burn,

That over-strong heat to good temper may turn ;

White endive, and succory, with spinage enow,

All such with good pot-herbs should follow the plough.

Get water of fumitory liver to cool,

And others the like, or else go like a fool;

Conserves of barberry, quinces and such,

With syrups that easeth the sickly so much.

Old Gervase Markham in his "Approved Book called the English Housewife, containing the inward and outward virtues which ought to be in a complete woman," places her skill in physic as one of the most principal; "you shall understand," he says, " that sith the preservation and care of the family touching their health and soundness of body consisteth most in her diligence, it is meet that she have a physical kind of knowledge, how to administer any wholesome receipts or medicines for the good of their healths, as well to prevent the first occasion of sickness, as to take away the effects and evil of the same, when it hath made seizure upon the body." And " as it must be confessed that the depths and secrets of this most excellent art of physic, are far beyond the capacity of the most skilful woman," he relates for the Housewife's use some "approved medicines and old doctrines, gathered together by two excellent and famous physicians, and in a manuscript given to a great worthy Countess of this land."

The receipts collected in this and other books for domestic practice are some of them so hypercomposite that even Tusser's garden could hardly supply all the indigenous ingredients; others are of the most fantastic kind, and for the most part they were as troublesome in preparation, and many of them as disgusting, as they were futile. That "Sovereign Water" which was invented by Dr. Stephens was composed of almost all known spices, and all savoury and odorous herbs, distilled in claret. With this Dr. Stephens "preserved his own life until such extreme old age that he could neither go nor ride; and he did continue his life, being bed-rid five years, when other physicians did judge he could not live one year; and he confessed a little before his death, that if he were sick at any time, he never used any thing but this water only. And also the Archbishop of Canterbury used it, and found such goodness in it that he lived till he was not able to drink out of a cup, but sucked his drink through a hollow pipe of silver."

Twenty-nine plants were used in the composition of Dr. Adrian Gilbert's most sovereign

Cordial Water, besides hartshorn, figs, raisins, gilly-flowers, cowslips, marygolds, blue violets, red rose buds, ambergris, bezoar-stone, sugar, aniseed, liquorice, and to crown all, "what else you please." But then it was sovereign against all fevers; and one who in time of plague should take two spoonsful of it in good beer, or white wine, "he might walk safely from danger, by the leave of God."-The Water of Life was distilled from nearly as many ingredients, to which were added a fleshy running capon, the loins and legs of an old coney, the red flesh of the sinews of a leg of mutton, four young chickens, twelve larks, the yolks of twelve eggs, and a loaf of white bread, all to be distilled in white wine.

For consumption, there were pills in which powder of pearls, of white amber and coral, were the potential ingredients; there was cockwater, the cock being to be chased and beaten before he was killed, or else plucked alive! and there was a special water procured by distillation, from a peck of garden shell-snails and a quart of earth worms, besides other things; this was prescribed not for consumption alone, but

for dropsy and all obstructions. For all faintness, hot agues, heavy fantasies and imaginations, a cordial was prepared in tabulates, which were called Manus Christi: the true receipt required one ounce of prepared pearls to twelve of fine sugar, boiled with rose water, violet water, cinnamon water, "or howsoever one would have them." But apothecaries seldom used more than a drachm of pearls to a pound of sugar, because men would not go to the cost thereof; and the Manus Christi simplex was made without any pearl at all. For broken bones, bones out of joint, or any grief in the bones or sinews, oil of swallows was pronounced exceeding sovereign, and this was to be procured by pounding twenty live swallows in a mortar with about as many different herbs! A mole, male or female according to the sex of the patient, was to be dried in an oven whole as taken out of the earth, and administered in powder for the falling evil. A grey eel with a white belly was to be closed in an earthen pot, and buried alive in a dunghill, and at the end of a fortnight its oil might be collected to "help hearing." A mixture of rose

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