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.

* *