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."