2nd g. ifo 40., Oct. 4. *56.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIE8. 



261 



LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1856. 



LETTERS OF GUSTA.VUS ADOLPHUS IW BEHALF OF 

 FATBICK RDTHVEN, AND A GLIMPSE AT THE 

 NATURE OF HIS MEDICAL PRACTICE. 



The letter of Gustavus Adolphus, soliciting the 

 ftivour of Charles I. towards Patrick Ruthven, 

 which you published in your 2"'' S. ii. 101., has 

 opened up a new source of inquiry respecting the 

 last of the Gowries. Allow me to propose a 

 Query with reference to it : — Can any one give 

 me information respecting the first letter written 

 upon this subject by Gustavus Adolphus to 

 Charles I. ? This first letter is stated in the 

 letter of the y'V October, 1627, which you have 

 printed, to have then been written "some two 

 years ago;" and the accuracy of that date is 

 farther shown by a reference to the letter in 

 question — that is, to the first letter — in a letter 

 of Mead to Stuteville, dated October 8, 1625. 

 After mentioning a proposal made by Gustavus 

 Adolphus to Charles I. to march in person into 

 the empire, Mead adds : 



" Another suit of the King of Sweden to ours was in 

 behalf of Mr. Kuthven, that he might be restored to the 

 honours of his predecessors." — Court and Times of 

 Charles I., vol. i. p. 51. 



Any information respecting this first letter, 

 written about October 1625, will be highly es- 

 teemed. 



Another point which at present occupies atten- 

 tion, with reference to this unfortunate victihi of 

 King James's suspicion, may perhaps fall within 

 the special literary province of some of your 

 readers. If so, the following Query may meet 

 with a ready answer. 



Among the many curious books of combined 

 cookery and chemistry which were extremely com- 

 mon amongst our ancestors of the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries, one was called The 

 Ladys Cabinet enlarged and opened. I have an 

 imperfect copy of this work, entitled : 



" The Lady's Cabinet enlarged and opened : 

 containing many rare Secrets, and Rich Ornaments, of 

 several Kinds and different Uses. Comprised under three 

 General Heads : 



1? {i 



Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c. 



2. Physick and Chirurgery. 



3. Coolcery and Housewifery. 



" Whereunto is added, Sundry Experiments, and choice 

 Extractions of Waters, Oyls, &c., collected and practised 

 By the late Itiglit Honourable and Learned Chymist, The 

 Lord Rutiiuen. The Fourth Edit, with Additions: 

 and a particular Table to each Part. London : Printed 

 by G. bedel and T. Collier, at the Middle Temple Gate in 

 Fleet Street, 16G7." 



A prefatory address, " To the Industrious Im- 

 provers of Nature and Art ; especially the ver- 



tuous Ladies and Gentlewomen of this Land," 

 signed M. B., insists strongly upon the endeavours 

 made by the writer to render the work acceptable 

 to its purchaser : 



"But hearing," he continues, "in the mean time, of 

 certain rare Experiments and choise extractions of Oils, 

 Waters, &c., the practice of a Noble Hand and of ap- 

 proved abilities (to testifie how ready I am to further 

 ingenious undertakings in this kind), I have with much 

 pains and some charges sought after, and at length 

 happily purchased them for you. All which, with the 

 addition of many other secrets of several kinds (and 

 I hope of valuable concernment), I have so incorporated 

 together, if I may so say, and methodically digested, that 

 they may be the more easily and profitably improved." 



These observations distinctly and specially ap- 

 ply, in the volume now before me, to the fourth 

 edition ; but on reference to a copy of the second 

 edition, published in 1654, now in the British 

 Museum, I find precisely the same words in the 

 Preface to that book, with the exception of 

 "second" for "fourth" in the allusion to the 

 number of the edition. Now my Query is : How 

 often were these " Experiments of Lord Ruthven" 

 reprinted ? The first edition seems to have been 

 published in 1654. The second may perhaps be 

 inferred, from the date of an address from " The 

 Stationer to the Reader," reprinted in the edition 

 of 1667, to have been published in 1657. The 

 third was published in 1667. Were there any 

 others ? I should also like to be informed who 

 was M. B., the compiler of the book ? 



As the subject of my coumiunication has brought 

 before us this little volume of the Ladys Cabinet 

 enlarged, it may not be unacceptable to your 

 readers if I mention a few of the strange things 

 which it contains. 



I may bring down upon myself the ridicule of 

 readers better versed than myself in gastronomy 

 and its annals, if I admit that much of the lan- 

 guage of this book is new to me. I have here, for 

 example, learnt what our ancestors, with some ap- 

 proach to profanity, termed a "Manus Christi." 

 The thing occurs frequently. Careful housewives 

 are directed to reduce this and that to the con- 

 sistency of a Manus Christi, or, as it is sometimes 

 expressed, to "boil it to" that "height." The ex- 

 pression simply meant a syrup; but there seems to 

 have been some superstition mixed up with it, for 

 I find in another little book of the same kind, 

 termed The Ladys Companion, that if sugar be 

 boiled to sugar again, " as it drops from your 

 spoon, the last drop will have a hair or string 

 from it as fine as a hair on your head." That 

 state of sugar was termed Manus Christi : a state, 

 I would remark, which is perfectly familiar to 

 every boy who has ever dropped treacle on his 

 bread. 



Again, I was foolish enough not to understand 

 what was meant by " a Quidony," whether of cher- 

 ries, quinces, pippins, or " raspices." It seems to 



