“Gentlewomen if the ground be not too wet may doe themselves much good by kneeling upon a Cushion and weeding. And thus both sexes might divert themselves from Idlenesse and evill company, which oftentimes prove the ruine of many ingenious people. But perhaps they may think it a disparagement to the condition they are in; truly none at all if it were but put in practise. For we see that those fashions which sometimes seem ridiculous if once taken up by the gentry cease to be so.” He quotes the Emperor Diocletian, who “left for a season the whole Government of the Empire and forsaking the Court betook himself to a meane House with a Garden adjoyning, wherein with his owne hands, he both sowed set and weeded the Herbes of his Garden which kinde of life so pleased him, that he was hardly intreated to resume the Government of the Empire.” “By this time,” he concludes, “I hope you will think it no dishonour to follow the steps of our grandsire Adam, who is commonly pictured with a Spade in his hand, to march through the Quarters of your Garden with the like Instrument, and there to rectify all the disorders thereof, to procure as much as in you lyes the recovery of the languishing Art of Simpling, which did it but appeare in lively colours, I am almost perswaded it would so affect you that you would be much taken with it. There is no better way to understand the benefit of it, than by being acquainted with Herballs and Herbarists and by putting this Gentle and ingenious Exercise in practise, that so this part of knowledge as well as others, may receive that esteem and advancement that is due to it, to the banishment of Barbarisme and Ignorance which begin again to prevaile against it.”
The real descendants, so to speak, of the herbal are the quaint old still-room books, many of which survive not only in museums and public libraries, but also in country houses. These still-room books, which are a modest branch of literature in themselves, are more nearly akin to herbals than to cookery books, with which they are popularly associated. For they are full of the old herb lore and of the uses of herbs in homely medicines. It must be remembered that even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries every woman was supposed to have some knowledge of both the preparation and the medicinal use of herbs and simples. When the herbal proper ceased and the first books on botany began to make their appearance the old herb lore did not fall into disuse, and the popularity of the still-room books in which it was preserved may be gathered from the fact that one of the first of these to be printed—A Choice Manual of rare and select Secrets in Physick & Chirurgerie Collected and practised by the Countesse of Kent[126] (late dec’d)—went through nineteen editions. There are some old books which merely inspire awe, for one feels that they have always lived in dignified seclusion on library shelves and have been handled only by learned scholars. But there are others whose leaves are so be-thumbed and torn that from constant association with human beings they seem to have become almost human themselves. Of this type are these old still-room books. They were an integral part of daily life and their worn pages bear mute witness to the fact.
FRONTISPIECE OF “THE CURIOUS DESTILLATORY,” BY THOMAS SHIRLEY, M.D., PHYSICIAN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY (1677)
One of the most interesting is the Fairfax still-room book.[127] Its first owner was probably Mary Cholmeley, born during the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign, and married in 1626 to the Rev. the Hon. Henry Fairfax (uncle of the great Parliamentarian General—Lord Fairfax).[128] In common with the majority of MS. still-room books, the Fairfax volume contains much that has no immediate connection with a still-room, but is full of human interest. It is a curious medley of culinary recipes, homely cures, housewifely arts such as bleaching, dyeing, brewing and preserving, to say nothing of hastily scribbled little notes regarding lost linen (including no fewer than “xxiii handkerchares!”) and the number of fowls, etc., in the poultry-yard. This last entry, which runs all down one side of a page, is as follows: “I Kapon, XVI Torkies, XVIII dowkes, IIII henes, II cokes, X chekins, X giese, IV sowes.”
But the most charming entry of all is: “A note of Mistress Barbara her lessons on ye virginalle which she hath learned and can play them,” followed by a list of songs, the majority of which have the entry “Mr. Bird” beside them. William Bird was organist to Queen Elizabeth, and he presumably was “Mistress Barbara’s” music-master. She apparently also had lessons from Dr. Bull, then at the height of his fame, for his name appears in connection with some of the items. Amongst the songs we find “My trew Love is to ye grene Wood gon,” and there are quite a number of dances—pavanes and courantes—which she played. One feels very sure that “Mistress Barbara” was a fascinating person, but she could not have been more lovable than her sister Mary, who married Henry Fairfax. A love-letter, written in Charles I.’s reign, is doubtless quite out of place in a book on old herbals, but I cannot refrain from quoting the following, written by Mary to her husband about six years after their marriage, because it very clearly reveals the character of one of the many types of women who wrote these still-room books.
“I received a letter and horse from Long on Thursday (Jan. 31) and will use meine [endeavour] to send Procter’s horse to Denton. I did nott so much rejoys att thy safe passage as at that Bleised and al suficiente gide whoss thou art, and whom I know thou truely sarves yt hath for a small time parted us, and I fearmly hope will give us a joyfull meeting. Dear heart, take eassy jernays and preferr thy owne heilth before all other worldly respects whatsoever.... I pray yu beg a blessing for us all, for I must needs comitt yu to his gracious protection yt will never fail us nor forsake us. Thine ever,
“Mary Fairfax.