270 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



of Health," briefly commends the tonic value of 

 the herb. "There is to be had in the Stilliard l at 

 London," he instructs his readers, "a kind of wine 

 named Worme-wood wine, which I would wish to 

 be much used of all such as be weake of stomacke. 

 They may easily haue a rundlet of three or foure 

 gallons or lesse, and which they may draw within 

 their owne chambers as neede requireth. I was 

 woont when appetite failed to steepe a branch or 

 two of common Wormewood in halfe a pint of good 

 white wine, close couered in some pot all night, and 

 in the morning to straine it through a clean linen 

 cloth and put in a little sugar and warme it, and so 

 drinke it. Or sometimes to burne a little quantitie 

 of wine with sugar, and a branch or two of Worme- 



1 Good housewives have always, and ordinarily very 

 properly, a good conceit of the various preparations they 

 are responsible for, and when we are told that a thing is 

 " home-made " one is expected to realise that it is necessarily 

 superior to anything that can be got outside, and to express 

 that belief unfalteringly. In a quaint old book, published in 

 1602, and entitled u Delightes for Ladies," these good house- 

 wives may pick up various useful hints, one being "how- 

 to make Wormewood wine." To effect this we merely 

 "take small Rochell or Coniake wine, put a few dropes 

 of the extracted oile of wormewood therein, and brewe 

 together out of one pot into another," the happy result 

 being that "you shall have a more neate and wholsom 

 wine than that which is solde at the Stillyard for right 

 Wormewood wine." Note the quiet sarcasm, it is sold 

 for the right article, but that is all the guarantee the 

 purchaser gets! 



