Part 3

His offence was he must always be talking. His ideas he must share, expound, illustrate, whether or no they were ripe. It is the sign-manual of the sincere amateur. His books are probably but the lees of his conversation. He was not, in the first place, a literary person. His _Memoirs_ are good reading for those with a touch of the fantastic in themselves; but the average literary critic will dub them rhodomontade. His scientific and controversial treatises, not at all unreadable, and full of strange old lore, survive as curiosities never to be reprinted. Nevertheless, his temper was distinctly scientific, and if his exact discoveries be limited to observing the effect of oxygen on plant-life, and his actual invention to a particular kind of glass bottle, yet he was an eager student and populariser of the work of Bacon, Galileo, and Harvey; and his laboratories were the nursing grounds of the new experimental philosophy.

With a distinctly rationalistic temper, he was yet a faithful, if independent, son of the Roman Church. He speaks sometimes as if he regarded the Church as the great storehouse of necessary authority for the intellectually feeble; but he accepted the main dogmas himself, being satisfied of them by intuition and reason. Protestantism, he held, was not for the ordinary person, considering "the natural imbecility of man's wits and understandings." His piety was a thing apart, a matter of heredity perhaps, and of his poetic temperament. I have heard him called by that abused name, "mystic." He was nothing of the sort, and he said so in memorable words. As an act of devotion he translated the _Adhering to God_ of Albertus Magnus. In the dedication to his mother he compares himself, as the translator of this mystic treatise, to certain travellers who "speak upon hearsay of countries they were never in." "The various course in the world that I have runne myself out of breath in, hath afforded me little means for solid recollection." Yet was he now and then upon the threshold. With streaks of the quack and adventurer in him, he gave out deep notes. Says Lloyd: "His soul [was] one of those few souls that understand themselves."

With an itch to use his pen as well as his tongue, he had none of the 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."