OF SWEET SCENTS 207 



and when perfumes became the fashion in Elizabeth's reign, 

 it was to the herb garden the English women turned rather 

 than to the products of Eastern lands. For at least two 

 hundred years rose-water was the perfume most in request, 

 and it was always used after banquets for washing the hands. 

 When one remembers that as late as James I's reign it was 

 regarded as foppish to use a fork, one realises that these 

 salvers of rose or sweet waters must have been more of a 

 necessity than a luxury. The custom of having scented 

 gloves and jerkins was introduced by that Elizabethan dandy 

 Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, on his return from Italy. 

 Queen Elizabeth the same year had a pair of scented gloves, 

 with which she was so delighted that they were painted in 

 her next portrait, and she was mightily pleased when another 

 courtier gave her a " gyrdle of pomanders." Excepting 

 during the Puritan regime the use of perfumes in every way 

 became rapidly so popular that all the small country houses 

 soon had their still-rooms, and the delightful custom of 

 scenting rooms with fragrant herbs was almost universal. 



Of this custom Sir Hugh Platt in his Garden of Eden 

 writes : "I hold it for a most delicate and pleasing thing to 

 have a fair gallery, great chamber or other lodging, that open- 

 eth fully upon the East or West sun, to be inwardly garnished 

 with sweet Hearbs and Flowers, yea and Fruit if it were 

 possible. For the performance whereof, I have thought of 

 these courses following. First, you may have fair sweet 

 Marjerom, Basil, Carnation, or Rosemary-pots, etc., to 

 stand loosely upon fair shelves, which pots you may let down 

 at your pleasure in apt frames with a pulley from your Cham- 

 ber window into your garden, or you may place them upon 

 shelves made without the Room, there to receive the warm 

 Sun, or temperate Rain at your pleasure, now and then when 

 you see cause. In every window you may make square 

 frames either of Lead or of Boards, well pitched within : fill 

 them with some rich earth, and plant such Flowers or Hearbs 

 therein as you like best ; if Hearbs, you may keep them in 

 the shape of green borders, or other form. And if you plant 

 them with Rosemary, you may maintain the same running 



