his
composition. The wonder is that in neither case was any sinister motive
charged. On the other hand, his Great Cordial or Elixir, which is not to
be confounded with his Simple Cordial, was credited with astonishing
virtues, and devoutly imbibed. His exact prescription for it is no
longer extant. It is not clear whether he ever divulged the quantities
as well as the ingredients. As specified by himself it might not have
the air of quackery, which, it cannot be denied, surrounds the receipt
handed down to posterity. Charles the Second's apothecary, Nicholas le
Febre, or le Febure, compounded it for the royal use, and printed an
account in 1664. Evelyn relates that he accompanied Charles to see the
preparation in 1662. But le Febre, Kenelm Digby, and Alexander Fraser
tampered with the original. It is acknowledged that Fraser added the
flesh, heart, and liver of vipers, and the mineral unicorn. Other
liberties, it may be apprehended, were taken. The receipt as drawn up by
le Febre reads like a botanist's catalogue interpolated with oriental
pearls, ambergris, and bezoardic stones, to add mystery. The old London
Pharmacopoeia gave a simpler receipt, in which the ingredients were
zedoary and saffron, distilled with crabs' claws, cinnamon, nutmeg,
cloves, cardamom seeds, and sugar.

[Sidenote: _Political Disquisitions._]

Physical science did not occupy all his leisure. He wrote much. At
different periods of his imprisonment, which cannot be precisely fixed,
he composed a variety of treatises. He discussed many questions of
politics, theoretical and practical. In his _Prerogative of Parliaments_
he undertook to prove by an elaborate survey of past relations between
the Crown and the Legislature, that the royal power gains and does not
lose through regular and amicable relations with the House of Commons.
The _Savoy Marriage_ is a demonstrative argument against the proposed
double family alliance between Savoy and the House of Stuart. Of that,
and of his _Discourse of the Invention of Ships_, his _Observations
concerning the Royal Navy and Sea Service_, and the _Letter to Prince
Henry on the Model of a Ship_, I have already spoken. He composed _A
Discourse on War in General_, which is very sententious. From his
notebooks he collected, in his _Arts of the Empire_ and _The Prince_,
better known as _Maxims of State_, a series of wise, almost excessively
wise, thoughts which had occurred to him in the course of his eager
read