The closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, knight, opened / newly edited with introduction, notes, and glossary, by Anne Macdonell.

  • Digby, Kenelm, 1603-1665.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, knight, opened / newly edited with introduction, notes, and glossary, by Anne Macdonell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    men, 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. Sim- pler, herbalist, doctor, distiller, cook—Digby was all ot them, and all of them with the utmost serious- ness ; 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 breakfast,” 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 ofseventeenth- 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 Preserv- ing and Candying ? Patrick, Lord Ruth ven’s Ladies' Cabinet Opened appeared in 1639 and 1655. Nor was it only the cuisine of the nobles that roused in- terest. One of the curiosities of the time is The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called Joan Crom- well, the IVife of the Late Usurper Truly Described and Represented and now made Publick for general Satisfac- tion, 1644. The preface is scurrilous beyond belief. Compiled from the gossip of servants, it is meant to cast ridicule on the housekeeping of the Protec- tor’s establishment. But the second part is a sober collection of by no means very penurious recipes from Joan’s own kitchen books. Hartman, hissteward, made anexcellentthingout of Digby’s receipts—though the publishing of The