Appendix III
A LIST OF THE HERBS, FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC., REFERRED TO IN The Closet Opened:—
1. Agrimony; alexander; angelica; avens, leaves & flowers; balm; bay-leaves; beet leaves; bettony, wild; bettony, Paul’s; bistort; bloodwort; bluebottles; blue-button; borage, leaves & flowers; bramble, red, tops of; broom-buds; bugle; bugloss, leaves & flowers; burnet; carduus benedictus; carrot, wild; celandine; cersevril; chicory; chives; clove gilly-flowers; clown’s all-heal; coltsfoot; comfrey; cowslip & French cowslip flowers; dragons; elder flowers; endive; eyebright; fennel; fever-few; garlic; ground-ivy; groundsel; hart’s tongue, leaves; hops, flowers; horehound; hypericum, tops & flowers; hyssop; ladies’ mantle; lettuce, leaves & stalks; lily of the valley; liquorice; liverwort; maidenhair; marigold, flowers & leaves; marjoram, sweet; marjoram, wild; marshmallow, leaves, flowers, & stalks; may-weed, brown; meadowsweet; mellilot, flowers; mint; spearmint; mouse-ear; mugwort; muscovy; nettle, red; oak of Jerusalem; organ; origanum [wild marjoram]; oseille; parietary; peas (chick); pellitory-of-the-wall; penny-royal; philipendula; pimpernel; pourpier; primrose, flowers; purslane; ribwort; rocket; rosemary, tops, flowers, & sprigs; rose; rue; sage, (red & wild), leaves & flowers; saxifrage; sanicle; scabious; scurvy grass; self-heal; shallots; sibboulets; skirrets; smallage; sorrel (wood); spike [spignel?]; spleenwort; spinach; St. John’s wort; strawberry leaves; sweetbriar, leaves, tops, buds; sweet oak; sweetwort; tamarisk; tansy; thyme (broad, lemon, mother, & wild); violet, leaves & flowers; wallflowers (yellow); wall rue; watercress; wheat (green); white-wort; winter savoury; woodbine; wormwood (sea & Roman); yarrow. (From this list I have omitted the commoner vegetables.)
2. Roots.—Alexander; angelica; asparagus; beet; betony, bittersweet; bluebottle; borage; coltsfoot; elecampane; eringo; fennel; fern; galingale; horse-radish; marshmallow; nettle (red); orris; parsley; scabious; sorrel; strawberry; succory; thyme (wild); tormentilla.
3. Seeds.—Anise; cardamom; carraway; citron; coriander; fennel; gromwell; melon; musk grains; mustard; nettle; parsley; saffron; tulip, seedy buds of; wormwood.
4. Fruits.—Apples (codlings, ginet moils, pearmains, pippins, golden pippins, red streaks); apricots; barberries; bilberries; cherries (black, Kentish, Morello); currants (dried, black, red); damsons; dates; jujubes; juniper berries; lemons; pears (bon chrétien & wardens); plums; prunes; raisins; rasps; sweetbriar berries; strawberries.
5. Barks, woods.—Ash-tree bark; lignum cassiæ.
6. Nuts.—Almonds; chestnuts; pine kernels; pistachios; walnuts (green).
7. Juices.—Balm; celandine; cherry; hop; lemon; onion; orange; spearmint; spinach; tansy.
8.—Distilled waters of angelica; cinnamon; mallow; orange-flower; plantain; rose (red & damask).
9. Spices of all sorts; cloves; cinnamon (also oil of, & spirit of); ginger; mace; mustard; nutmeg; pepper; peppercorns.
10. Wines.—Canary sack; claret; Deal; elder; Malaga (old); Muscat; Muscadine (Greek); red; Rhenish; sack, sherry sack; Spanish; white.
11. Other liquors.—Ale & beer; afterworts; lees of beer & wine; aqua vitæ; orangeado.
12. Vinegars of elder wine, & of white wine.
13. Verjuice of cider, & green sour grapes.
14. Other notable seasonings and ingredients:—
Ambergris; ivory; leaf gold; powder of white amber; powder of pearl; Spanish pastilles (ambergris, sugar, & musk).
Notes
Introduction
p. x 1. 3 Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine. By W. Carew Hazlitt. Booklovers’ Library. 1886.
p. x 1. 5 The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby. By One of his Descendants [T. Longueville]. 1896.
p. xi 1. 29 For the controversy about the date of his birth, see the usual biographical authorities:—Longueville, op. cit., Digby’s Memoirs, ed. Nicolas, 1827; Dict. of Nat. Biog.; Biog. Brit. (Kippis); Wood’s Athenae Oxon., iii. 688; Aubrey’s Lives, ii. 323, etc. etc.
p. xiv 1. 13 “the elder Lady Digby.” See text, p. 141.
p. xv 1. 15 “manuscript of elections.” See W.H. Black’s Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS., 240, 131 and 1730, 166.
p. xx 1. 20 Journal of a Voyage to Scanderoon, ed. J. Bruce for Camden Soc., 1868.
p. xxi 1. 3 “Scanderoon had to be repudiated.” Here is a curious echo of the affair, quoted by Mr. Longueville from Blundell of Crosby. “When the same Sir Kenelm was provoked in the King’s presence (upon occasion of the old business of Scanderoon) by the Venetian Ambassador, who told the King it was very strange that his Majesty should slight so much his ancient amity with the most noble state of Europe, for the affections which he bore to a man (meaning Sir Kenelm) whose father was a traitor, his wife a ——, and himself a pirate, altho’ he made not the least reply (as long as the ambassador remained in England) to those great reproaches, yet after, when the quality of his enemy was changed (by his return) to that of a private person, Sir Kenelm posted after him to Italy. There sending him a challenge (from some neighbouring state) he found the discreet Magnifico as silent in Italy as himself had been in England, and so he returned home.”
p. xxii 1. 13 The Memoirs were edited by Sir N.H. Nicolas from the Harleian MS. 6758 in 1827.
p. xxii 1. 28 “outburst of vile poetry.” See Poems from Sir K.D.’s papers, ed. Warner. Roxburghe Club, 1877.
p. xxiii 1. 16 “hermit.” The portrait of Digby in this guise, painted by Janssen, in the possession of T. Longueville, Esq., is reproduced in Mr. Longueville’s life of his ancestor. Says Pennant in his Journey from Chester to London, ed. 1782, “I know of no persons who are painted in greater variety than this illustrious pair [Digby and his wife]: probably because they were the finest subjects of the time.”
p. xxv 1. 3 “duel... with a French lord.” See the curious little pamphlet, Sir Kenelme Digby’s Honour Maintained, 1641.
p. xxvi 1. I The Observations on Religio Medici, together with the correspondence between Browne and Digby, are often reprinted with the text of R.M.
p. xxvi 1. 5 “glass-making.” See Longueville, pp. 255-6
p. xxix 1. 11 Descartes. Des Maizeaux. Viede Saint-Evremond, pp. 80-6.
p. xxxi 1. 8 A Late Discourse made in a Solemne Assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpellier. By Sir K.D., Kt. Rendered faithfully into English by R. White. 2nd ed., 1658. The original was in French. Longueville gives a loathsome receipt for the Sympathetic Powder from an original in the Ashmolean. “To make a salve yt healeth though a man be 30 miles off.” But vitriol is the only ingredient Digby mentions; and the receipt given by his steward Hartman [see Appendix], and sold by him, is more likely to be Digby’s. Of course, there were many claimants to the credit of the invention of sympathetic powders.
p. xxxiii 1. 4 “house in Covent Garden.” For a brief account of this house, see an article on Hogarth’s London in the English Review, February, 1910.
p. xxxiv 1. 6 “history of the Digby family.” This has disappeared.
p. xxxiv 1. 13 “Catalogue of the combined collection.” Bibliotheca Digbeiana, 1680. See also Edwards’s Memoirs of Libraries, II, 118, and Sir K.D. et les Anciens Rapports des Bibliothèques Françaises avec la Grande Bretagne. L. Delisle. 1892.
p. xxxviii 1. 20 Lloyd’s Lives of Excellent Personages that suffered for... Allegiance to the Soveraigne in the late Intestine Wars, ed. 1668.
p. xliv 1. 10 “remedy for Biting of a Mad Dog.” There is a similar receipt in Arcana Fairfaxiana, ed. G. Waddell, 1890, a collection of old medical receipts, etc. of the Fairfax and Cholmely families. “A Cure for the Bite of a Mad Dog Published for ye Benefit of Mankind in the Newspapers of 1741 by a Person of Note.... N.B. This Medicine has stood a tryal of 50 years Experience, and was never known to fail.”
p. liii 1. 30 Culpeper’s English Physitian, 1653.
p. liii 1. 30 N. Culpeper. Herball.
p. liii 1. 30 John Gerard. The Historie of Plants, 1547.
p. liii 1. 31 Wm. Coles. Adam in Eden and The Art of Simpling. 1657 and 1656.
To the Reader.
p. 3 1. 20 “that old Saw in the Regiment of Health.” The Regyment, or a Dyetary of Helth. By Andrew Borde, 1542. (Reprinted by the Early English Text Soc.)
Receipts.
p. 5, etc. “Metheglin is esteemed to be a very wholsom Drink; and doubtless it is so, since all the world consents that Honey is a precious Substance, being the Choice & Collection which the Bees make of the most pure, most delectable, & most odoriferous Parts of Plants, more particularly of their Flowers & Fruits. Metheglin is therefore esteemed to be an excellent Pectoral, good against Consumption, Phthisick and Asthma; it is cleansing & diuretick, good against the Stone & Gravel; it is restorative and strengthening; it comforts and strengthens the Noble parts, & affords good Nourishment, being made Use of by the Healthy, as well as by the Sick.
“My worthy Master, that Incomparable Sir Kenelm Digby, being a great lover of this Drink, was so curious in his Researches, that he made a large Collection of the choicest & best Receipts thereof.”
Hartman, Select Receipts, p. 1.
Concerning the difference between Mead and Metheglin, Borde (Regyment of Helth) says:—
“Of Meade: Meade is made of honny & water boyled both togyther; yf it be fyred and pure, it preserveth helth; but it is not good for them the whiche have the Ilyache or the Colycke.
“Of Metheglyn: Metheglyn is made of honny and water, & herbes, boyled and sodden togyther: yf it be fyred and stale, it is better in the regyment of helth than meade.”
But the distinction seems to have been forgotten in the hundred odd years between the publication of Borde’s book and Digby’s.