The closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight opened

fermentation." Now and again other methods of calculating than ours are used ; but " whiles you can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely " is as easily computed as " while your Pulse beateth 200 stroaks." Quantities are a more difficult affair. How is one to know how much smallage was got for a penny in mid-seventeenth century } The great connoisseur Lord Lumley is very lax, and owns that his are " set down by guess." It is a curious old world we get glimpses of, at once barbarous, simple, and extra vagant,when great ladies were expected to see to the milking of their cowSj as closely as Joan Cromwell supervised her milch-kine in St. James's Park, and to the cleanli- ness of their servants' arms and hands, and when huntsmen rode at the bidding of the cook ; for in order that venison be in good condition, " before the deer be killed he ought tobe hunted and chased as much as possible." The perusal of the section, " To Feed Chickens," will shock our poultry-breed- ers. " To make them prodigiously fat in about twelve days," " My Lady Fanshawe gives them strong ale. They will be very drunk and sleep ; then eat again. Letacandle stand all night over the coop, and then they will eat much all the night." "Lord Denbigh's Almond Marchpane," and the * current wine' of which it is said "You may drink safely long draughts of it," will appeal perhaps only to the schoolboy of our weaker generation. Yet there are receipts, doubtless gathered in Sir Ken- elm's later years, that have the cautious invalid in view. Of these are the "Pleasant Cordial Tablets, m INTRODUCTIOD\(^ which are very comforting and strengthen nature much,"and the liquor which is called " smoothing." " In health you may dash the Potage with a little juyce of Orange " is in the same low key. The gruels are so many that we must wish Mr. Wood- house had known of the book. If the admixture of " wood-sorrel and currens " had seemed to him fraught with peril, he could have fallen back on the "Oatmeal Pap of Sir John Colladon." Where are all the old dishes vanished to ? Who has ever known " A smoothening Quiddany of Quinces } " Who can tell the composition of a Tansy ? These are tame days when we have for- gotten how to make Cock-Ale. They drank * Sack with Clove gilly-flowers' at the "Mermaid," I am sure. What is Bragot '^. What is Stepony ? And what Slipp-coat Cheese .'' Ask the baker for a Manchet. The old names call for a 5<2//^<^(?. Ousont les mets d^antan? And, cooks, with all your exact- ness about pounds and ounces and minutes of the clock, can you better directions like these ? Watch for "a pale colour with an eye of green." "Let it stand till you may see your shadow in it " ; or " till it begin to blink." Your liquid may boil "sim- pringly," or ** in a great ebullition, in greatgalloping waves." " Make a liaison a moment, about an Ave Maria while." And all the significance of the times and seasons we have lost in our neglect to kill male hogs "in the wane of the moon ! " For there is a lingering of astrology in all this kitchen lore. The irascible Culpeper, Digby's contemporary, poured scorn on such doctors as knew not the high science, INTRODUCTION liii "Physick without astronomy being like a lamp without Oil."