Nor was it only the cuisine of the nobles that roused interest.  One of the curiosities of the time is The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the Late Usurper Truly Described and Represented and now made Publick for general Satisfaction, 1644.  The preface is scurrilous beyond belief.  Compiled from the gossip of servants, it is meant to cast ridicule on the housekeeping of the Protector’s establishment.  But the second part is a sober collection of by no means very penurious recipes from Joan’s own kitchen books.

Hartman, his steward, made an excellent thing out of Digby’s receipts—­though the publishing of The Closet Opened was not his doing, I think.  His Choice and Experimented Receipts in Physick and Chirurgery had already appeared in 1668, which suggested to some other hanger-on of the Digby household that John Digby’s consent might be obtained for printing Sir Kenelm’s culinary as well as his medical note-books.  Hartman followed up this new track with persistence and profit to himself.  As a mild example of the “choice and experimented,” I transcribe “An Approved Remedy for Biting of a Mad Dog”:  “Take a quart of Ale, and a dram of Treacle, a handful of Rue, a spoonful of shavings or filings of Tin.  Boil all these together, till half be consumed.  Take of this two spoonfuls in the morning, and at night cold.  It is excellent for Man or Beast.”  I need not continue.  The receipts are there for curious searchers.  They were applied to aristocratic patients; and they are no more absurd or loathsome than those of other books of the time and kind.  Even Bacon is fantastic enough with his “Grains of Youth” and “Methusalem Water.”  In 1682, George Hartman published, “for the Publike Good,” The True Preserver and Restorer of Health.  It is dedicated to the Countess of Sunderland, and is described as “the collection for the most part (which I had hitherto reserved) of your incomparable kinsman and my truly Honourable Master, Sir Kenelm Digby, whom I had the Honour to serve for many years beyond the Seas, as well as in England; and so continued with him till his dying Day, and of whose Generosity and Bounty I have sufficiently tasted, and no less of your illustrious Fathers, both before and after my Glorious Masters Decease.”  Of this book he says, “The world hath not yet seen such another Piece.”  Commend me to the forthright methods of seventeenth century advertisement!  In the second part, “Excellent Directions for Cookery,” The Closet Opened was largely drawn on.  In 1696 appeared The Family Physician, by George Hartman, Phylo-Chymist ... who liv’d and Travell’d with the Honourable Sir Kenelm Digby in several parts of Europe, the space of Seven Years till he died.  This other choice compilation owes much to the “incomparable” one, and is described as “the marrow of collections.”