patience, the hankering after perfection of form, of the professional man
of letters. His account of his Scanderoon exploit, a sea-log, a little
written-up later, was perhaps not meant for publication. It did not see the
light till 1868. His _Memoirs_ were written, he says, "for my own
recreation, and then continued and since preserved only for my own private
content--to please myself in looking back upon my past and sweet errors."
He even begs those who may come upon the MS. "to convert these blotted
sheets into a clear flame." His commentary on the _Faëry Queen_ stanza was
thrown off in a hurry. "The same Discourse I made upon it the first half
quarter of an hour that I saw it, I send you there, without having reduced
it to any better form, or added anything at all to it." And so for the
better-known and interesting _Observations on 'Religio Medici.'_ Browne
reproached him for his review of a pirated edition. Digby replied he had
never authorised its publication, written as it was in twenty-four hours,
which included his procuring and reading the book--a truly marvellous _tour
de force_; for the thing is still worth perusal. He was always the
improvisor--ready, brilliant, vivid, imperfect. He must give vent to the
ideas that came upon him in gusts. "The impressions which creatures make
upon me," he says, "are like boisterous winds." He fully recognised his own
limitations. "I pretend not to learning," he declares, with exaggerated
modesty. Amateur and improviser of genius, let us praise him as such. The
spacious, generous minds that can find room for all the ideas and culture
of an epoch are never numerous enough. There is no one like such amateurs
for bridging two ages; and Digby, with one hand in Lilly's and the other in
Bacon's, joins the mediæval to the modern world. Nor is a universal amateur
a genius who has squandered his powers; but a man exercising his many
talents in the only way possible to himself, and generally with much
entertainment and stimulus to others. It was Ben Jonson, too great a man to
be one of his detractors on this score, who wrote of him:
"He is built like some imperial room
For that[1] to dwell in, and be still at home.
His breast is a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic ample thoughts do meet;
Where nature such a large survey hath ta'en
As other souls to his, dwelt in a lane."
[Footnote 1: All virtue.]
There was nothing singular in his interest in astrology and alchemy. Lilly
and Booker, both of them among his acquaintances, were ordered to attend
the parliamentary army at the siege of Colchester, "to encourage the
soldiers with predictions of speedy victory." Still--though he believed in
greater absurdities--his attitude towards such matters was that of his
chosen motto, _Vacate et Videte._ "To rely too far upon that vaine art I
judge to be rather folly than impiety." As with regard to spirits and
witches, he says, "I only reserve my assent." That he was not altogether
absorbed in the transmutation of metals in his laboratory practice, and yet
that he dabbled in it, makes him historically interesting. In him better
than in Newton do we realise the temper of the early members of the Royal
Society. In this tale of his other activities I have not forgotten _The
Closet Opened_. Of all Digby's many interests the most constant and
permanent was medicine. How to enlarge the span of man's life was a problem
much meditated on in his age. We have seen how Descartes's mind ran on it;
and in Bacon's _Natural History_ there is reference to a 'book of the
prolongation of life.' In spite of what is written on his Janssen hermit
portrait--_Saber morir la mayor hazanza_--Digby loved life. His whole
exuberant career is a pæan to life, for itself and its great chances, and
because "it giveth the leave to vent and boyle away the unquietnesses and
turbulences that follow our passions." To prolong life, fortify it, clarify
it, was a noble pursuit, and he set out on it as a youth under the tuition
of the 'good parson of Lindford. His _Physick and Chirurgery_ receipts,
published by Hartman, are many of them incredible absurdities, not
unfrequently repulsive; but when we compare them with other like books of
the time, they fit into a natural and not too fantastic place. Sir Thomas
Browne was laughing at Digby, but not at Digby alone, in the passage in
_Vulgar Errors_--"when for our warts we rub our hands before the moon, or
commit any maculated part unto the touch of the dead." Sir Kenelm gathered
his receipts on all his roads through Europe, noted them down, made them up
with his own hands, and administered them to his friends. In Hartman's
_Family Physician_ is given "An experienced Remedy against the Falling
Sicknes, wherewith Sir K. Digby cur'd a Minister's Son at Franckfort in
Germany, in the year 1659." It begins, "Take the Skull of a Man that died
of a Violent Death." (Hartman says he helped to prepare the ghastly
concoction.) I have already noted how he doctored his beautiful wife's
complexion; and how he was called in to cure Howell's wound. In a poetic
tribute he is referred to as:
"Hee, that all med'cines can exactly make,
And freely give them."
Evelyn records how Digby "advised me to try and digest a little better, and
gave me a water which he said was only raine water of the autumnal equinox
exceedingly rectified, and smelt like _aqua fortis_."
Here, at last, we have come to the end of Sir Kenelm the amateur. If he was
an empiric, so were all the doctors of his time; and he may be described as
a professional unpaid physician who carried on a frequently interrupted
practice. That he did not publish his receipts himself does not reflect on
his own idea of their importance. They had a wide circulation among his
friends. And, as I have pointed out, he never showed great eagerness to
publish. Such works as appeared in his lifetime were evidently printed at
the request of learned societies, or by friends to whom they were
dedicated, or by White.
The distance between the healer and the cook has grown to be immense in
recent times. The College of Physicians and Mary Jane in the kitchen are
not on nodding terms--though one sees faint signs of an effort to bridge
the wide gap. But in the seventeenth century the gap can hardly be said to
have existed at all. At the back of the doctor is plainly seen the figure
of the herbalist and simpler, who appear again prominently in the
still-room and the kitchen, by the side of great ladies and great
gentlemen, bent on making the best and the most of the pleasures of the
table no doubt, but quite as much on the maintenance of health as of
hospitality. Simpler, herbalist, doctor, distiller, cook--Digby was all of
them, and all of them with the utmost seriousness; nor in this was he in
the least singular. The great Bacon was deeply concerned with such cares,
though in certain of his recommendations, such as: "To provide always an
apt break-fast," to take this every morning, not to forget to take that
twice a month, one may read more of the valetudinarian than in Digby. _The
Closet Opened_ is but one of an interesting series of books of the kind,
which have been too much neglected by students of seventeenth-century
manners and lore and language. Did not W.J. issue the Countess of Kent's
_Choice Manual of Physic and Chirurgey_, with directions for Preserving and
Candying? Patrick, Lord Ruthven's _Ladies' Cabinet Opened_ appeared in 1639
and 1655. Nor was it only the _cuisine_ of the nobles that roused interest.
One of the curiosities of the time is _The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth,
commonly called Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the Late Usurper Truly Described
and Represented and now made Publick for general Satisfaction,_ 1644. The
preface is scurrilous beyond belief. Compiled from the gossip of servants,
it is meant to cast ridicule on the housekeeping of the Protector's
establishment. But the second part is a sober collection of by no means
very penurious recipes from Joan's own kitchen books.
Hartman, his steward, made an excellent thing out of Digby's
receipts--though the publishing of _The Closet Opened_ was not his doing,
I think. His _Choice and Experimented Receipts in Physick and Chirurgery_
had already appeared in 1668, which suggested to some other hanger-on of
the Digby household that John Digby's consent might be obtained for
printing Sir Kenelm's culinary as well as his medical note-books. Hartman
followed up this new track with persistence and profit to himself. As a
mild example of the "choice and experimented," I transcribe "An Approved
Remedy for Biting of a Mad Dog": "Take a quart of Ale, and a dram of
Treacle, a handful of Rue, a spoonful of shavings or filings of Tin. Boil
all these together, till half be consumed. Take of this two spoonfuls in
the morning, and at night cold. It is excellent for Man or Beast." I need
not continue. The receipts are there for curious searchers. They were
applied to aristocratic patients; and they are no more absurd or loathsome
than those of other books of the time and kind. Even Bacon is fantastic
enough with his "Grains of Youth" and "Methusalem Water." In 1682, George
Hartman published, "for the Publike Good," _The True Preserver and Restorer
of Health_. It is dedicated to the Countess of Sunderland, and is described
as "the collection for the most part (which I had hitherto reserved) of
your incomparable kinsman and my truly Honourable Master, Sir Kenelm Digby,
whom I had the Honour to serve for many years beyond the Seas, as well as
in England; and so continued with him till his dying Day, and of whose
Generosity and Bounty I have sufficiently tasted, and no less of your
illustrious Fathers, both before and after my Glorious Masters Decease."
Of this book he says, "The world hath not yet seen such another Piece."
Commend me to the forthright methods of seventeenth century advertisement!
In the second part, "Excellent Directions for Cookery," _The Closet Opened_
was largely drawn on. In 1696 appeared _The Family Physician_, by George
Hartman, Phylo-Chymist ... who liv'd and Travell'd with the Honourable Sir
Kenelm Digby in several parts of Europe, the space of Seven Years till he
died. This other choice compilation owes much to the "incomparable" one,
and is described as "the marrow of collections."
But Hartman is not the only witness to Digby's connoisseurship in the joint
mysteries. Better to my mind than even Hartman's are the style and the
spirit of Master May. In 1660 appeared _The Accomplisht Cook,_ or the Art
and Mystery of Cookery ... approved by the fifty years experience and
industry of Robert May, in his attendance on Several Persons of Honour. It
is dedicated to Lord Lumley, Lord Lovelace, Sir Wm. Paston, Sir Kenelme
Digby, and Sir Frederick Cornwallis, "so well known to the Nation for their
admired Hospitalities," and generally to
"the race
Of those that for the Gusto stand,
Whose tables a whole Ark command
Of Nature's plentie."
"He is an Alien, a meer Stranger in England that hath not been acquainted
with your generous housekeeping; for my own part, my more particular Tyes
of Service to you, my Honoured Lords, have built me up to the height of
this experience." His preface is a heartrending cry of regret for the good
old times before usurping Parliaments banished splendidly extravagant
gentlemen across the seas, "those golden days of Peace and Hospitality,
when you enjoy'd your own, so as to entertain and relieve others ... those
golden days wherein were practised the Triumphs and Trophies of Cookery,
then was Hospitality esteemed and Neighbourhood preserved, the Poor
cherished and God honoured; then was Religion less talk't on and more
practis't, then was Atheism and Schisme less in Fashion, and then did men
strive to be good rather than to seem so." High-souled were the _chefs_ of
the seventeenth century!
The 1669 edition of _The Closet Opened_ is evidently the first. The
interleaved example mentioned in the Catalogue of the Digby Library is of
the same date. Whoever prepared it for the press and wrote the egregious
preface "To the Reader"--Hartman, or as I think, another--gave it the
title; but it was a borrowed one. Some years earlier, in 1655, had appeared
_The Queen's Closet Opened, Incomparable Secrets which were presented unto
the Queen by the most Experienced Persons of the Times, many wherof were
had in Esteem when she pleased to descend to Private Recreation_. The
Queen, of course, is Henrietta Maria, and chief among the "Experienced
Persons" referred to was certainly her Chancellor, Digby. Possibly he may
even have suggested the printing of the collection. Like titles are met
with again and again. _Nature's Cabinet Opened_, a medical work, was
attributed to Browne, though he repudiated it. Ruthven's book I have
already alluded to. _The Queen-like Closet_, a Rich Cabinet, by Hannah
Wolly, came out in 1670.
Of the two books, the Queen's and her Chancellor's, Digby's has afforded me
by far the most delight. Though many of the receipts are evidently given as
sent in, the stamp of his personality is on the whole; and he is the poet
of all these culinary artists. But on the score of usefulness to the
housewife I forbear all judgment. The recipes may be thought extravagant in
these late hard times--though epicurism has changed rather than vanished.
Lord Bacon's receipt for making "Manus Christi for the Stomach" begins,
"Take of the best pearls very finely pulverised one drachm"; and a health
resolution runs, "To take once during supper wine in which gold is
quenched." Costly ingredients such as pearls and leaf gold appear only once
among Digby's receipts. The modern housewife may be aghast at the thought
of more than a hundred ways of making mead and metheglin. Mead recalls to
her perhaps her first history-book, wherein she learnt of it as a drink of
the primitive Anglo-Saxons. If she doubt the usefulness of the collection
in her own kitchen, let her take the little volume to her boudoir, and read
it there as gossiping notes of the _beau monde_ in the days when James I
and the Charleses ruled the land. She will find herself in lofty company,
and on intimate terms with them. They come down to our level, without any
show of condescension. Lords and ladies who were personages of a solemn
state pageant, are now human neighbourly creatures, owning to likes and
dislikes, and letting us into the secrets of their daily habits.
It pleases me to think of Henrietta Maria, in her exile, busying herself in
her still-room, and forgetting her dangers and sorrows in simpling and
stilling and kitchen messes; and of her devoted Sir Kenelm, in the moments
when he is neither abeting her Royalist plots, nor diverting her mind to
matters of high science, or the mysteries of the Faith, but bringing to her
such lowlier consolations as are hinted in "Hydromel as I made it weak for
the Queen Mother." We are not waiting in a chill ante-chamber when we read,
"The Queen's ordinary Bouillon de Santé in a morning was thus," or of the
Pressis which she "used to take at nights--of great yet temperate
nourishment--instead of a Supper." And who can hint at Court scandals in
the face of such evidence of domesticity as "The Queen useth to baste meat
with yolks of fresh eggs, &c." or "The way that the Countess de Penalva
makes the Portuguese eggs for the Queen is this"? We cannot help being
interested in the habits of Lady Hungerford, who "useth to make her mead at
the end of summer, when she takes up her Honey, and begins to drink it in
Lent." My Lady Gower and her husband were of independent tastes. Each had
their own receipts. It must be remembered that Dr. Johnson said no woman
could write a cookery-book; and he threatened to write one himself. And Sir
Kenelm had many serious rivals among his own sex.
In such an _embarras de choix_ as given by all these drink receipts, we may
be in doubt whether to try "My Lord Gorge's Meath," or "The Countess of
Newport's" cherry wine, or "The sweet drink of my Lady Stuart," or of Lady
Windebanke, or "Sir Paul Neile's way of making cider," or "my Lord
Carlisle's Sack posset"; but one is strongly influenced by such a note as
"Sir Edward Bainton's Receipt which my Lord of Portland (who gave it me)
saith, was the best he ever drank." I had thought of Saint-Evremond as
warrior and wit, delightful satirist and letter-writer. But here is a
streak of new light upon him: "Monsieur St. Euvremont makes thus his potage
de santé of boiled meat for dinner being very valetudinary.... When he is
in pretty good health, that he may venture upon more savoury hotter things,
&c." The most rigorous Protestants will relax to hear how "To make a Pan
Cotto as the Cardinals use in Rome." And if "My Lord Lumley's Pease
Pottage" sounds homely, be it known, on the word of the eloquent Robert
May, that his lordship "wanted no knowledge in the discerning this
mystery." What fastidious simplicity in the taste of the great is suggested
by "My Lord d'Aubigny eats Red-herrings thus boiled"!
But if Sir Kenelm consorted only with the great, it was with the great of
all social ranks. It was not merely on high questions of science he
discoursed with the discoverer of the circulation of the blood--witness
"Dr. Harvey's pleasant water cider." Then there was that "Chief Burgomaster
of Antwerpe," with whom he must have been on pretty intimate terms, to
learn that he "used for many years to drink no other drink but this [mead];
at Meals and all times, even for pledging of healths. And though He was an
old man, he was of an extraordinary vigor every way, and had every year a
Child, had always a great appetite, and good digestion; and yet was not
fat." Digby was too great a gentleman to be above exchanging receipts with
the professors of the "mystery," such as the Muscovian Ambassador's
steward; and when "Master Webbe who maketh the King's meath," on the 1st of
September, 1663, came to his house to make some for him, Sir Kenelm stood
by, a little suspicious lest the other great artist was bamboozling him. He
had an eye for all--though it may have been one of his correspondents who
says of the remnants of a dish that it "will make good Water-gruel for the
Servants."
The seriousness of the business is tremendous; and to ignore the fine
shades in the 106 receipts for mead and metheglin would have been a
frivolity unknown in Digby's circle. There is care; there is conscience;
there is rivalry. The ingredients are mingled with a nice discrimination
between the rights of the palate and the maintenance of health. "Use only
Morello cherries (I think) for pleasure, and black ones for health." You
may not wait your own convenience in such serious business. "It is best
made by taking all the Canicular days into your 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 extravagant, when great ladies were expected to see to the milking of
their cows, as closely as Joan Cromwell supervised her milch-kine in St.
James's Park, and to the cleanliness 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 to be hunted and
chased as much as possible." The perusal of the section, "To Feed
Chickens," will shock our poultry-breeders. "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. Let a candle 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 Kenelm's later years, that have the cautious
invalid in view. Of these are the "Pleasant Cordial Tablets, 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. Woodhouse 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 forgotten 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 _Ballade. Où sont les mets d'antan?_ And, cooks, with
all your exactness 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 "simpringly," or "in a great
ebullition, in great galloping 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, "Physick without astronomy being like a lamp without
Oil."
As for the poetry I promised--well, I have been quoting it, have I not? But
there is more, and better. Surely it was a romantic folk that kept in its
store-rooms the "best Blew raisins of the sun," or "plumpsome raisins of
the sun," and made its mead with dew, and eagerly exchanged with each other
recipes for "Conserve of Red Roses." And now we come to an essential
feature of the whole. It is a _cuisine_ that does not reek of shops and
co-operative stores, but of the wood, the garden, the field and meadow.
Like Culpeper's pharmacopeia, it is made for the most part of "Such Things
only as grow in England, they being most fit for English Bodies." Is it any
wonder that the metheglin should be called the "Liquor of Life," which has
these among its ingredients: Bugloss, borage, hyssop, organ,
sweet-marjoram, rosemary, French cowslip, coltsfoot, thyme, burnet,
self-heal, sanicle, betony, blew-button, harts-tongue, meadowsweet,
liverwort, bistort, St. John's wort, yellow saunders, balm, bugle,
agrimony, tormentilla, comfrey, fennel, clown's allheal, maidenhair,
wall-rue, spleen-wort, sweet oak, Paul's betony, and mouse-ear?
The housewife of to-day buys unrecognisable dried herbs in packets or
bottles. In those days she gathered them in their season out of doors. The
companions to _The Closet Opened_ should be the hasty and entertaining
Culpeper, the genial Gerard, and Coles of the delightful _Adam in Eden_,
all the old herbals that were on Digby's bookshelves, so full of
absurdities, so full of pretty wisdom. They will tell you how to mix in
your liquor eglantine for coolness, borage, rosemary, and sweet-marjoram
for vigour, and by which planet each herb or flower is governed. Has our
sentiment for the flowers of the field increased now we no longer drink
their essence, or use them in our dishes? I doubt it. It is surely a
pardonable grossness that we should desire the sweet fresh things to become
part of us--like children, who do indeed love flowers, and eat them. In the
Appendix I have transcribed a list of the plants referred to. Most cooks
would be unable to tell one from another; and even modern herbalists have
let many fall out of use, while only a few are on the lists of the English
pharmacopeia. To go simpling once more by field and wood and hedgerow would
be a pleasant duty for country housewives to impose upon themselves; and as
to the herbalists' observations on their virtues, we may say with old
Coles, "Most of them I am confident are true, and if there be any that are
not so, yet they are pleasant."
There is an air of flippancy about that reflexion of Coles you will never
find in Sir Kenelm. Of the virtues of each plant and flower he used he was
fully convinced; and when he tells of their powers, as in his "Aqua
Mirabilis," the tale is like a solemn litany, and we are reminded of
Clarendon's testimony to "the gravity of his motion." And so, his Closet
once more open, he stands at the door, his majesty not greatly lessened;
for the book contains a reminiscence of his rolling eloquence, something
of his romance, and not a little of his poetry.
ANNE MACDONELL.
_Chelsea_, 1910.
THE
CLOSET
Of the Eminently Learned
Sir _Kenelme Digbie_ K^{t}.
OPENED:
Whereby is DISCOVERED
Several ways for making of
_Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c._
_TOGETHER WITH_
Excellent Directions
FOR
COOKERY:
As also for
_Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c._
* * * * *
Published by his Son's Consent.
* * * * *
_London_, Printed by _E.C._ for _H. Brome_, at
the Star in _Little Britain_. 1669.
[_Facsimile of the original title-page._]
TO THE READER