Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/42

 28 THE CECILS

His health was never very good and he had had a serious illness at Wimbledon two years before. He was now again kept to his house by a grave indisposition, which attacked him at so opportune a moment that it is generally supposed to have had a diplomatic origin. There is no doubt, however, that he was over- worked, and his friend Dr. Wotton wrote from Paris to urge him to moderate his labours, " your complexion being not strong enough to continue as you began." It was on this occasion that Lord Audley sent him the following simple recipes. 1

A good medicine for weakness or consumption.

" Take a sow-pig of nine days old, and flea him and quarter him, and put him in a stillatory with a handful of spearmint, a handful of red fennel, a handful of liverwort, and half a handful of red nepe [turnip], a handful of celery, nine dates clean picked and pared, a handful of great raisins, and pick out the stones, and a quarter of an ounce of mace and two sticks of good cinnamon bruised in a mortar : and distil it together, with a fair fire ; and put it in a glass, and set it in the sun nine days ; and drink a spoonful of it at once when you list."

A compost.

" Item. Take a porpin, otherwise called an English hedgehog, and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast in a still with these ingredients : item, a quart of red wine, a pint of rose-water, a quart of sugar, cinnamon and great raisins, one date, twelve nepe."

Whether these remedies were efficacious we do not learn. But by June I4th Sir William was well enough

1 Tytler, II. 169, 170.

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