Name: The closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight opened
Author: Sir Kenelm Digby

^^'■i, A ^ 1/ 5 -yyUSl^^^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/closetofsirkenelOOdigb THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED; NEWLY EDITED, WITH INTRO- DUCTION, NOTES, AND GLOSSARY, BY ANNE MACDONELL LONDON: PHILIP LEE WARNER . 38 ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 19 10 -f" <^' <^ The deiign on the front binding of this volume reproduces a contempo- rary Binding (possibly by le Gascon ?) from the library of the Author, whose arms it embodies. * ^ullLGE LIBRARIES CiitSTNUT HiUu MA 02167 -^^x^Z'm'^ CONTENTS Introduction ...... The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened Title Page of the First Edition To the Reader .... Receipts for Mead, Metheglin, and other Drinks ...... Cookery Receipts .... The Table ..... Appendix I. Some Additional Receipts II. The Powder of Sympathy III. List of the Herbs, Flowers, &c, referred to in the Text Notes ....... Glossary ....... Index of Receipts ..... PAGE ix I 3 5 III 263 271 272 274 277 283 287 The frontispiece is a reproduction in photogravure after the portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby by Sir Anthony Vandyke in His Majesty's Collection at Windsor Castle., by permission. INTRODUCTIOUi^ known. Though the Dictionary of National Biogra- phy omits any reference to it, and its name does not occur in Mr. Carew Hazlitt's Old Cookery Books, Dr. Murray quotes it in his great Dictionary, and it is mentioned and discussed in The Life of Digby by One of his Descendants. But Mr. Longueville treats it therein with too scant deference. One of a large and interesting series of contemporary books of the kind, its own individual interest is not small; and I commend it with confidence to students of seventeenth-century domestic manners. To apolo- gise for it, to treat it as if it were some freak, some unowned sin ofDigby's,would be the greatest mis- take. On the contrary, its connection with his life and career is of the closest ; and 1 make bold to assert that of all his works, with the doubtful ex- ception of his Memoirs, it is the one best worth reprinting. It is in no spirit of irony that I say of him who in his own day was looked on almost as Bacon's equal, who was the friend of Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Harvey, Ben Jonson, Crom- well, and all the great spirits of his time, the inti- mate of kings, and the special friend of queens, that his memory should be revived for his skill in making drinks, and his interest in his own and other folks' kitchens. If to the magnificent and protean Sir Kenelm must now be added still another side, if he must appear not only as gor- geous Cavalier, inmate of courts, controversialist, man of science, occultist, privateer, conspirator, lover and wit, but as bon viveur too, he is not the ordinary bon viveur, who feasts at banquets pre- INTRODUCTIO^Mj xi pared by far away and unconsidered menials. His interest in cookery — say, rather, his passion for it — was in truth an integral part of his philosophy, and quite as serious as his laboratory practice at Gresham College and Paris. But to prove what may seem an outrageous exaggeration, we must first run over the varied story of his career ; and then The Closet Opened m^WI be seen to fall into its due and important place.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

^^'■i, A ^ 1/ 5 -yyUSl^^^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/closetofsirkenelOOdigb THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED THE CLOSET OF KNIGHT OPENED; NEWLY EDITED, WITH INTRO- DUCTION, NOTES, AND GLOSSARY, BY ANNE MACDONELL LONDON: PHILIP LEE WARNER . 38 ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 19 10 -f" <^' <^ The deiign on the front binding of this volume reproduces a contemporary Binding (possibly by le Gascon ?) from the library of the Author, whose arms it embodies. * ^ullLGE LIBRARIES CiitSTNUT HiUu MA 02167 -^^x^Z'm'^ CONTENTS Introduction ...... The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened Title Page of the First Edition To the Reader .... Receipts for Mead, Metheglin, and other Drinks ...... Cookery Receipts .... The Table ..... Appendix I. Some Additional Receipts II. The Powder of Sympathy III. List of the Herbs, Flowers, &c, referred to in the Text Notes ....... Glossary ....... Index of Receipts ..... PAGE The frontispiece is a reproduction in photogravure after the portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby by Sir Anthony Vandyke in His Majesty's Collection at Windsor Castle., by permission. INTRODUCTION known. Though the Dictionary of National Biography omits any reference to it, and its name does not occur in Mr. Carew Hazlitt's Old Cookery Books, Dr. Murray quotes it in his great Dictionary, and it is mentioned and discussed in The Life of Digby by One of his Descendants. But Mr. Longueville treats it therein with too scant deference. One of a large and interesting series of contemporary books of the kind, its own individual interest is not small; and I commend it with confidence to students of seventeenth-century domestic manners. To apologise for it, to treat it as if it were some freak, some unowned sin of Digby's, would be the greatest mistake. On the contrary, its connection with his life and career is of the closest ; and 1 make bold to assert that of all his works, with the doubtful exception of his Memoirs, it is the one best worth reprinting. It is in no spirit of irony that I say of him who in his own day was looked on almost as Bacon's equal, who was the friend of Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Harvey, Ben Jonson, Cromwell, and all the great spirits of his time, the intimate of kings, and the special friend of queens, that his memory should be revived for his skill in making drinks, and his interest in his own and other folks' kitchens. If to the magnificent and protean Sir Kenelm must now be added still another side, if he must appear not only as gorgeous Cavalier, inmate of courts, controversialist, man of science, occultist, privateer, conspirator, lover and wit, but as bon viveur too, he is not the ordinary bon viveur, who feasts at banquets pre- INTRODUCTIO^Mj xi pared by far away and unconsidered menials. His interest in cookery — say, rather, his passion for it — was in truth an integral part of his philosophy, and quite as serious as his laboratory practice at Gresham College and Paris. But to prove what may seem an outrageous exaggeration, we must first run over the varied story of his career ; and then The Closet Opened will be seen to fall into its due and important place.