lo BOOKS OF SECRETS. 



" Prcepositas his Practice " by Leonard Mascall, and others. There was 

 no lack of guides to health, if it could be attained or preserved by secrets 

 and receipts. 



Mascall wrote other books on practical affairs such as the planting and 

 grafting of trees, "The Booke of Cattell" concerning the management 

 of live stock, horses, oxen, sheep, goats, hogs, " The Governmente of 

 Poultrie," probably the earliest treatise on the subject in English, "A 

 profitable Boke to take out spottes and staines," which is one of a set of 

 books to which reference is made below. To these may be added the 

 works on gardening by Thomas Hill, his " Parfite orderinge of Bees," 

 his " Physiognomy," and other works. Another little tract similar to some 

 of these is "The Booke of Thrift, containing a perfite order, ... to profite 

 lands, and other things belonging to Husbandry," printed at London by 

 John Wolfe, in 1589. 



In the seventeenth century the output of these books was greater than 

 ever. Occasionally they were respectable small quarto volumes, while 

 those in small octavo were for the most part chap-books. But though 

 cheaply got up they were sometimes decorated, if one may say so, with 

 a woodcut portrait or title-page, or frontispiece. Among the quartos may 

 be mentioned the late reprints of Hill's and Mascall's books on gardening, 

 on cattle and arboriculture, and Gervase Markham's works on farming, and 

 household economy. In this century too appeared Hill's " Legerdemain," 

 which ran through so many editions that one might suppose the art of 

 conjuring was a much cultivated profession. Works on the secrets of 

 medicine were not wanting ; Brugis' " Marrow of Physic," Levens' " Path- 

 way to Health," Bonham's " Chyrurgian's Closet," the " Dispensatory " of 

 the two quacks, Salvator Winter and Francisco Dickinson, and reprints 

 of earlier treatises may serve as examples. 



Of the little octavos and duodecimos which flowed from the press in a 

 copious stream, mention can be made of only a few that are more or less 

 typical. There were tlie works of John White, " lover of artificial 



