A Book of Simples

Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation is highly variable and sometimes non-existent by modern
standards, in particular full stops are often followed by lower case
and commas by upper case. Spelling is also highly variable. Both remain
unchanged apart from the following self-evident errors.

In Simple:
50  ‘liquor’ was ‘liqour’
77  ‘warm’ them was ‘warn’ them
131 the ‘rest’ of the Sugar was the ‘re’ of the Sugar
190 take out your ‘oynions’ was ‘onyons’
327 ‘alabaster’ was ‘alablaster’
498 sickness or ‘surffit’ was sickness or ‘fursit’

Italics are represented thus _italic_.




                          A BOOK OF SIMPLES




[Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF ORIGINAL MS.]




                               A BOOK OF
                                SIMPLES

                         [Illustration: Leaf]

               “_Delirious persons here a cure may find,
              To stem the phrensy and to calm the mind!_”

                       [Illustration: Colophon]

                           SECOND IMPRESSION

                                LONDON
                   SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND CO. LTD.
                      100, SOUTHWARK STREET, S.E.


                       [Illustration: Colophon]

              CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
                  TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.




_INTRODUCTION_


_The original of this little book was found in the library of a
distinguished Essex antiquary: the document has unfortunately no
history, but from its appearance and comprehensive character it must
have been the still-room book of some manor house or homestead of
standing._

_The manuscript is a folio composed entirely of vellum, bound in
green, with a conventional design in gold: the binding of this book
is a reduced facsimile of the original. The writing is in the hand
of several persons: the spelling and absence of punctuation are
here reproduced in all their original quaintness. The book has been
submitted to experts, who are of opinion that it covers a period of
some fifty years, terminating about the middle of the eighteenth
century._

_The condition of many of the rural districts of England in the
eighteenth century and the almost impassable state of the roads are
brought home to us by a writer in “The Gentleman’s Magazine” (1757),
in the following description: “It took my horse up to the belly the
second step he took on the road, and had I not dismounted and clambered
up some bushes I had been lodged there for a season.” The isolation of
the country in those days is almost inconceivable; the difficulties
of travel were immense, and a survival of feudal legislation tied the
labourer to the soil. Thus we may look upon the manor or farmhouse,
with its retainers, as a detached social unit, and, in a sparsely
populated country, almost a state in itself._

_It is not difficult to form a picture of the lady of the house: amid
her other duties she dispensed doles and charity to the poor around
her. Through her knowledge of simples she was also “simpler” of all the
ills that flesh is heir to, not only in the case of man, but also of
beast. The wisdom and observation of a long procession of forebears are
summed up in the recipes gathered in this book._

    Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak,
    That in her garden sip’d the silvery dew;
    Where no vain flower disclos’d a gaudy streak;
    But herbs for use, and physic, not a few,
    Of grey renown within those borders grew;
    The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
    Fresh balm, and mary-gold of cheerful hue;
    The lowly gill, that never dares to climb;

           *       *       *       *       *

    And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
    Shall be ere-while in arid bundles bound
    To lurk amidst the labours of her loom,
    And crown her kerchiefs clean, with mickle rare perfume.

_In these days, when the good manager is scarce, it is perhaps
difficult to realize or appreciate that domestic œconomy was once
practised as a science, founded upon the older herbalists, housewives’
tales and oral tradition, the whole administered by rule of thumb. As
will be seen, the domestic pharmacopoeia had not yet emerged from the
seventeenth century. The astrological atmosphere of Culpepper, who
warns us that he “who would know the operation of the herbs must look
up to the stars astrologically,” and the writings of Parkinson, clearly
show the influence of that period. The predominance of the healing
properties of herbs is still more apparent in this book; there is not a
single remedy or simple in which their virtues are not set forth._

_In my lady’s garden, set within its red-brick walls, grew Camomile,
Basil, Cardons, Angelica, Sweet Chevril, Tansy, Saffron, Elecampane,
Hyssop, Thyme, Marjoram, Purslane, Sage, Rosemary, Rue, Pennyroyal,
Borage, Liquorice, Horehound and many other plants.