LATER SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HERBALS 173 



little else to doe, would be ruled by me, I would advise them to 

 spend their spare time in their gardens, either in digging, setting, 

 weeding or the like, then which there is no better way in the world 

 to preserve health. If a man want an Appetite to his Victuals 

 the Smell of the Earth new turned up by digging with a spade 

 will procure it, 1 and if he be inclined to a Consumption it will 

 recover him. 



" Gentlewomen if the ground be not too wet may doe them- 

 selves much good by kneeling upon a Cushion and weeding. 

 And thus both sexes might divert themselves from Idlenesse 

 and evill company, which oftentimes prove the mine of many 

 ingenious people. But perhaps they may think it a disparage- 

 ment to the condition they are in; truly none at all if it were 

 but put in practise. For we see that those fashions which 

 sometimes seem ridiculous if once taken up by the gentry cease 

 to be so." He quotes the Emperor Diocletian, who " left for a 

 season the whole Government of the Empire and forsaking the 

 Court betook himself to a meane House with a Garden adjoyning, 

 wherein with his owne hands, he both sowed set and weeded the 

 Herbes of his Garden which kinde of life so pleased him, that he 

 was hardly in treated to resume the Government of the Empire." 

 " By this time," he concludes, " I hope you will think it no 

 dishonour to follow the steps of our grandsire Adam, who is 

 commonly pictured with a Spade in his hand, to march through 

 the Quarters of your Garden with the like Instrument, and there 

 to rectify all the disorders thereof, to procure as much as in 

 you lyes the recovery of the languishing Art of Simpling, which 

 did it but appeare in lively colours, I am almost perswaded it 

 would so affect you that you would be much taken with it. 

 There is no better way to understand the benefit of it, than by 

 being acquainted with Herballs and Herbalists and by putting 

 this Gentle and ingenious Exercise in practise, that so this 



1 In this connection he quotes Dr. Pinck, Warden of New College, Oxford, 

 who, when he was " almost fourscore yeares old, would rise very betimes in 

 the morning and going into his Garden he would take a Mattock or Spade* 

 digging there an hour or two, which he found very advantageous to his health." 



