Midsummer to Michaelmas 
Boy and I have been busy for a long time making 
Rose-potpourri. Cabbage-roses and pink Damask Roses 
are the best. Velvet-rose and Moss-rose petals, too, are 
nice, but not white or yellow, they give a bad colour. The 
usual receipts for Potpourri given in Ladies’ papers, &c., 
seem to consist of very expensive materials. This is a 
comparatively cheap one, which I have found good. 
“ Alternate layers of Rose-leaves and Table-salt (some people 
say Bay-salt), and 12 oz. Orris-root, 5 oz. Gum-benzoin, 
4 oz. of Coriander, 1 oz. Cinnamon, 1 oz. Cloves, 1 oz. 
Pimento, | oz. Tonquin-bean, J oz. Ess. Bouquet, 2 oz. 
Lavender-flowers.” You may add Tube-rose petals, Ver- 
bena leaves, Thyme, and Marjoram, if you like. Another 
recipe, in addition to Coriander-seed, Orris, Cinnamon, 
Cloves, Gum-benzoin, and Bay-salt, says Musk and Storax. 
(Memo. The Roses must not be wet when gathered.) A 
third version takes in dried Marigold petals. But I do not 
see much sense in this last, as they have no nice smell. It 
is odd that our ancestors, the Saxons, do not seem to have 
known about liquid scents, though they burnt spices and 
scented woods, and used to make sort of effigies of birds 
out of bundles of sweet-smelling herbs, named Cyprus- 
birds, which were burnt at feasts. Queen Catherine de 
Medicis and Queen Elizabeth were both very devoted to 
perfumes. I saw the other day a delightful old round 
perforated brass box like an apple which opened to allow 
of smouldering perfume to be put within. I wonder whether 
this was the ornament called in old Scottish inventories a 
“pome,” probably from the French word pomme ? Hippo- 
crates, the ancient Greek physician, declared perfumes were 
medicines, and is said to have cured nervous diseases with 
them. Pliny also had a high opinion of scents medicin- 
ally, and maintained that as many as thirty ailments were 
curable by the scent of the Rose, twenty by the Violet, and 
forty-two by the Iris and by the Mint. In the days of Luther, 
fires of scented wood and spices were supposed to be effi- 
cacious in driving away the Plague, and I have known fires 
of Rosemary and Myrtle lighted to drive away Cholera — I 
