By C. Penruddocke. 28 
To secure him better treatment—for the Nortons had no idea whom 
Will. Jackson represented—Miss Lane advised him to counterfeit 
being sick of an ague, and feign to be weak, for which he got a 
separate chamber allotted to him, and Mrs. Norton, pitying his: 
condition, ordered her own maidservant, Margaret Rider, to look 
after him. Now Margaret had probably lived long enough in a 
gentleman’s house to know how to concoct simple medicines in the 
‘still room,” and therefore, seeing the poor young man looking 
pale and dejected, she took upon herself to exercise such knowledge 
Method of Physic, of physic as she had acquired. Picture to yourselves 
3rd Ed., dedicated the young woman consulting such books as 
1001 Coe? “The Method of Physick,” by Philip Burrough 
1601. Compton e ysick,” by P 4, 
Library. 8rd edition, 1601, or “ The Physician’s Practice,” 
published in 1639, a copy of which may be found in the Cathedral 
Library at Salisbury ; and, after poring over these for some time, 
becoming convinced that Will. Jackson (meaning His Most Gracious 
Majesty) had several complaints, and required to be treated accor- 
dingly. Possibly she glanced over the remedies for “ Phrensy,”’ and 
understood it to mean “ influenza,” for which a decoction of mallows 
and endives and lettuce is recommended either as an “ averter,” or 
‘* preparer,” and read of asthma, or a wheezing, for which the dried 
lungs of a fox was highly spoken of. I think this must have been 
as a “preparer.” She knew that ancient writers accounted the 
sow thistle to be very wholesome and nourishing as an article of 
diet, for was it not recorded by Pliny that Theseus, prior to his 
encounter with the bull on the plains of Marathon, partook of a dish of 
cooked sow thistles? Again,in the Middle Ages the Carduus Benedic- 
tus, or sow thistle, was accredited with healing powers. “The milk 
which is taken from the stalks when they are broken, given in drink 
is very beneficial to those that are short winded, and have a 
wheezing.” In making “Aqua Epidemica,” or London Plague 
Water, the leaves of the Carduus Benedictus, or blessed thistle, were 
used, and also mixed with new milk, as a comforting drink, and 
styled by the old writers alexipharmic, 7.¢c., resisting poison. I 
rather fancy that knowledge was a dangerous thing in the hands of 
Margaret Rider, for, finding that the thistle (plenty of it about) 
