ends these true rules. Thus
could he keep the absent queen in their minds; and also he could give a
fair copy to her, since she had lost her receipts in her flight.

Though Agnes Strickland stated that copies of this Queens Closet Opened
are exceedingly rare in England, several are preserved in old New
England families, some of them the descendants of colonial physicians;
and the book may be shown as a fair example of the methods of practice
and composition of prescriptions in colonial and provincial days.

This volume of mine was one of those which were not fated to dwell among
"Persons of Honour and Quality" in old England; it crossed the waters to
the new land with simpler folk, and was for many years the
pocket-companion of an old New England doctor. Two names are carefully
written on the inside of the cover of my book, names of past owners:
"Edward Talbot, His Book," is in the most faded ink, and "William
Morse, His Book, in the y'r 1710, Boston." A musty, leathery smell
pervades and exhales from the pages, and is mingled with whiffs of an
equally ancient and more penetrating odor, that of old drugs and
medicines; for many a journey over bleak hills and lonely dales has the
book made, safely reposing at the bottom of its owner's pocket, or lying
cheek by jowl with the box of drugs and medicines, and case of lancets
in his ample saddlebags.

This country doctor, like others of his profession at the same date, had
not studied deeply in college and hospital; nor had he taken any long
course of instruction in foreign schools and universities. When he had
decided to become a doctor, he had simply ridden with an old,
established physician--ridden literally--in a half-menial, half-medical
capacity. He had cared for the doctor's horse, swept the doctor's
office, run the doctor's errands, pounded drugs, gathered herbs, and
mixed plasters, until he was fitted to ride for himself. Then he had
applied to the court and received a license to practise--that was all. I
doubt not that this book of mine, and perhaps a manuscript collection of
recipes and prescriptions, and a few Latin treatises that he could
hardly decipher, formed his entire pharmacop[oe]ia. As he had chanced to
inherit a small fortune from a relative, he became a physician of some
note; for in colonial days wealth and position were as essential as were
learning and experience, to enable one to become a good doctor.

I like to think of the rich and pompous old d