Autograph manuscript, on paper, containing 72 pages of medical, chemical and household recipes and formulas. Contents include many medical recipes, such as traditional herbal washes, broths, salves, oils and pills for specific ailments, including baldness, dropsy, the bloody flux, sores, and plague. There are also several multi-purpose elixirs attributed to "Doctor Hawse" and Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as a recipe for "Laudanum Paracelsi" and several chemical preparations intended to regulate and balance the humors. Other contents include chemical formulas for various compounds and salts, including "sal naturae" and "sal ammoniak" and household recipes for varnish, ink, colored oils, cement, bronzing and gilding pigment, and marbled paper. Paston uses the standard alchemical symbols for metals and gives precise ingredient quantities, both by weight and in ratios. and Pages 73-83 contain cookery and household recipes in an eighteenth-century copperplate hand, presumably that of Anna Rogers. Some recipes attributed to publications dated 1770-1777.
Description:
Almost entirely in English; several recipes in Latin., Binding: in the style of Queens' Binder A (William Nott). Contemporary full red morocco, elaborately gilt in an all-over design incorporating drawer-handle tools, floral motifs and flower tools, framed in a repeating ornamental border. Seven-compartment gilt spine; coroneted monogram "RR" (Robert and Rebecca Paston) in the third compartment. Marbled endpapers., Blank pages not digitized., Ex libris Anna Rogers. Purchased from Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller on the Hazel M. Osborn Fund and the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Fund, 2014., Ownership stamp of Anna Rogers, in red ink, appears on verso of front endpaper and verso of second blank page. "April 6 1765" written below the second stamp in an unidentified hand., Robert Paston, first Earl of Yarmouth (1631-1683), English politician, collector of art, books, and curios, and scientist. One of the Original Fellows of the Royal Society, he conducted alchemical experiments with Thomas Henshaw and studied the medical and alchemical writings of Paracelsus. He sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1673, first for Thetford and then for Castle Rising. Created Baron Paston, Viscount Yarmouth in 1673 and Earl of Yarmouth three years later, Paston served as Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk from 1676 until his death. He married Rebecca Clayton (died 1694), daughter of the London merchant Sir Jasper Clayton, in 1650; the couple had ten children. Paston died, deeply in debt, at Oxnead Hall in 1683, and was succeeded by his second son, William Paston (1654-1732)., Volume opens with unpaginated 6 p. index of recipes and a list of "characters and valew of medicinall weights;" rest of volume is paginated 1-256. Pages after p. 83 are blank., and Watermark: coat of arms not in Heawood; similar to Heawood Coat of Arms 348.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--Intellectual life--17th century
Subject (Name):
Nott, William, binder, Paracelsus,--1493-1541--Influence, Rogers, Anna,--active 1770-1777--Stamp, Yarmouth, Robert Paston,--Earl of,--1631-1683, and Yarmouth, Robert Paston,--Earl of,--1631-1683--Binding
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800, Chemistry--Early works to 1800, Cooking, English--Early works to 1800, Health--Early works to 1800, Iatrophysical school, Medicine, Popular--Early works to 1800, Medicine--Early works to 1800, Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions, Medicine--Great Britain--Early works to 1800, Recipes--Great Britain, Traditional medicine--Great Britain--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800, and Workshop recipes--Early works to 1800
Manuscript on paper, in a single hand, containing memoranda, historical notes, curiosities, and opinions on various subjects. Many of the entries are concerned with various religions, including describing their rites and customs, such as "sacrifices," "strange idols," and "temples"; and "notions about the Greek Church." Other items in the volume include the evolution of music, illustrated with diagrams, and an account of an experiment conducted by Sir Richard Munden (1640-89) off Cape St. Vincent in 1678 to test the properties of oil of aniseed, cork, and wood.
Description:
Binding: full parchment. and Blank pages not digitized. Text written upside down in latter half of volume; photographed right-side up.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--Intellectual life--17th century and Great Britain--Religious life and customs--17th century
Subject (Name):
Colvill, John, Covel, John,--1638-1722, and Orthodox Eastern Church
Subject (Topic):
Christianity and other religions, Judaism, Music--History and criticism, Music--Manuscripts, and Theology
Manuscript on paper, in several hands, of Latin quotations grouped by philosophical and moral subjects such as Bellum; Fortuna; Humilitas; Ingratus; Patientia; and Virtus Moralis. Other entries include several religious poems; medical recipes "for the stone"; Biblical quotations; a history of England from William the Conqueror to 1502; and a prayer which asks God to bless "thy servant James by thy grace...King defender of the true ancient CS A. F. In all causes and over all persons...Blesse the noble queene Ana & let not the scepter depart from prince Henry nor thy gratious goodnes from all the Roial progeny."
Description:
Binding: full sheep; blind-stamped decoration on covers., Pen trials inside front and back covers, including several drawings of cats, mice, and a bird., Signature of Robert Cottesford on end-paper., and Table of contents to the Latin quotations appears on pp. 172-5.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--History--1066-1687, Great Britain--Intellectual life--17th century, and Great Britain--Religious life and customs--17th century
Subject (Name):
James--I,--King of England,--1566-1625
Subject (Topic):
English poetry--17th century, Latin poetry--17th century, Medicine, Meditations (Religious), Philosophy, and Prayers
