Theres Pippins and Cheese to Come | Page 4

light.
By these confessions you will see how unfit I am to comment on the
old cook book of Sir Kenelm Digby. Yet it lies before me. It may have
escaped your memory in the din of other things, that in the time when
Oliver Cromwell still walked the earth, there lived in England a man by
the name of Kenelm Digby, who was renowned in astrology and
alchemy, piracy, wit, philosophy and fashion. It appears that wherever
learning wagged its bulbous head, Sir Kenelm was of the company. It
appears, also, that wherever the mahogany did most groan, wherever
the possets were spiced most delicately to the nose, there too did Sir
Kenelm bib and tuck himself. With profundity, as though he sucked
wisdom from its lowest depth, he spouted forth on the transmutation of
the baser metals or tossed you a phrase from Paracelsus. Or with long
instructive finger he dissertated on the celestial universe. One would
have thought that he had stood by on the making of it and that his
judgment had prevailed in the larger problems. Yet he did not neglect
his trencher.

And now as time went on, the richness of the food did somewhat
dominate his person. The girth of his wisdom grew no less, but his
body fattened. In a word, the good gentleman's palate came to vie with
his intellect. Less often was he engaged upon some dark saying of
Isidore of Seville. Rather, even if his favorite topic astrology were
uppermost about the table, his eye travelled to the pantry on every
change of dishes. His fingers, too, came to curl most delicately on his
fork. He used it like an epicure, poking his viands apart for sharpest
scrutiny. His nod upon a compote was much esteemed.
Now mark his further decline! On an occasion--surely the old rascal's
head is turned!--he would be found in private talk with his hostess, the
Lady of Middlesex, or with the Countess of Monmouth, not as you
might expect, on the properties of fire or on the mortal diseases of man,
but--on subjects quite removed. Society, we may be sure, began to
whisper of these snug parleys in the arbor after dinner, these shadowed
mumblings on the balcony when the moon was up--and Lady Digby
stiffened into watchfulness. It was when they took leave that she saw
the Countess slip a note into her lord's fingers. Her jealousy broke out.
"Viper!" She spat the words and seized her husband's wrist. Of course
the note was read. It proved, however, that Sir Kenelm was innocent of
all mischief. To the disappointment of the gossips, who were tuned to a
spicier anticipation, the note was no more than a recipe of the manner
that the Countess was used to mix her syllabub, with instruction that it
was the "rosemary a little bruised and the limon-peal that did quicken
the taste." Advice, also, followed in the postscript on the making of tea,
with counsel that "the boiling water should remain upon it just so long
as one might say a miserere." A mutual innocence being now
established, the Lady Digby did by way of apology peck the Countess
on the cheek.
Sir Kenelm died in 1665, full of years. In that day his fame rested
chiefly on his books in physic and chirurgery. His most enduring work
was still to be published--"The Closet Opened."
It was two years after his death that his son came upon a bundle of his
father's papers that had hitherto been overlooked. I fancy that he went

spying in the attic on a rainy day. In the darkest corner, behind the
rocking horse--if such devices were known in those distant days--he
came upon a trunk of his father's papers. "Od's fish," said Sir Kenelm's
son, "here's a box of manuscripts. It is like that they pertain to alchemy
or chirurgery." He pulled out a bundle and held it to the light--such
light as came through the cobwebs of the ancient windows. "Here be
strange matters," he exclaimed. Then he read aloud: "My Lord of
Bristol's Scotch collops are thus made: Take a leg of fine sweet mutton,
that to make it tender, is kept as long as possible may be without
stinking. In winter seven or eight days"--"Ho! Ho!" cried Sir Kenelm's
son. "This is not alchemy!" He drew out another parchment and read
again: "My Lord of Carlile's sack posset, how it's made: Take a pottle
of cream and boil in it a little whole cinnamon and three or four flakes
of mace. Boil it until it simpreth and bubbleth."
By this time, as you may well imagine, Sir Kenelm's son was wrought
to an excitement. It is likely that he inherited his father's palate and that
the juices of his appetite were