Midsummer to Michaelmas 
slices of apple was fried or baked in the oven. All these 
recipes are out of Elizabeth Cleland’s “ New and Easy 
Method of Cookery/*’ and as set forth on the title-page, 
“ Chiefly intended for the Benefit of the Young Ladies who 
attend Her School.” It was printed for the author in 
Edinburgh in 1755, and (I quote the title-page) 
“Sold at Her House in the Luckenbooths.” 
Tansy does not seem in any request nowadays in the 
kitchen ; I have never known a cook ask for it. But its 
virtues are still recognised beyond the seas. In Virginia 
the negroes make Tansy-tea for colds, and at a pinch 
Mas’r’s cook will condescend to use it in a sauce. 
It was also used as a Cosmetic long ago. “ Soak some 
Tansy in Buttermilk for ten days, then wash ye Maidens 
faces,” if you wish them to gain beauty. An old recipe for 
keeping meat used to be rubbing it with Tansy. 
July 4. — I found a lovely dark crimson Rose out in the 
kitchen-garden to-day, which Gardener says is the old- 
fashioned Scotch Rose, known as the Velvet Rose. There 
is also an abundance of a beautiful large-petalled single 
pink Rose like an old-fashioned Damask; its bushes are 
very low, and bright-green leaves. The old border of great 
Orange Lilies ( Thunbergianum ) and tall slim white Canter- 
bury Bells is now a very pretty sight, looking down it from 
the garden-gate. Mercury’s Violets is another name for 
these, also Our Lady’s Nightcaps. The pink Cabbage-roses 
are coming out in masses, also Ideale and Niphetos, and 
plenty of old-fashioned single Pinks, very sweet — the Gilly- 
flowers of the old Herbalists. In the legend of Sir 
Owain there is a delightful description of the Earthly 
Paradise, where the blessed are said to arrive after passing 
through Purgatory : 
Fair were her erbers with flowres, 
Rose and lili divers colours, 
Primros and parvink ; 
Mint, feverfoy, and eglenterre 
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