There are certain tasks which, like virtue, carry their reward with
them. No doubt Miss ELEANOUR SINCLAIR ROHDE would be gratified if
her book, _A Garden of Herbs_ (LEE WARNER), were to pass into several
editions--as I trust it will--and receive commendation on every
hand--as it surely must--but such results would be irrelevancies. She
has already, I am convinced, tasted so much delight in the making
of this, the most fragrant book that I ever read, in her delving and
selecting, that nothing else matters. Not only is the book fragrant
from cover to cover, but it is practical too. It tells us how
our ancestors of not so many generations ago--in Stuart times
chiefly--went to the herb garden as we go to the chemist's and the
perfumer's and the spice-box, and gave that part of the demesne much
of the honour which we reserve for the rock-garden, the herbaceous
borders and the pergola. And no wonder, when from the herbs that grow
there you can make so many of the lenitives of life--from elecampane
a sovran tonic, and from purslane an assured appetiser, and from
marjoram a pungent tea, and from wood-sorrel a wholesome water-gruel,
and from gillyflowers "a comfortable cordial to cheer the heart," and
from thyme an eye-lotion that will "enable one to see the fairies."
Miss ROHDE tells us all, intermingling her information with mottoes
from old writers and new. Sometimes she even tells too much, for,
though she says nothing as to how lovage got its pretty name, we are
told that "lovage should be sown in March in any good garden soil."
Did we need to be told that? Is it not a rule of life? "In the Spring
a young man's fancy...."

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To my mind, amongst the least forgettable books of the present year