Volume 2

Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets : Six papers read to the Archæological society of Glasgow April 1882-January 1888 / by John Ferguson.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1895-1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets : Six papers read to the Archæological society of Glasgow April 1882-January 1888 / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hidden Secrets, commonly called the good huswives Closet of Provision,” first printed about the middle of the sixteenth century,* and Hugh Plat’s “Delightes for Ladies” printed in 1602.f The next that I know of, and the first of a series of similar books which appeared in the seventeenth century, has been already described,* but for convenience of comparison the description may be repeated from the British Museum copy (1038. i. 35. (1-)): the 1 tadies | CABINET | opened: | Wherein is found hidden feverall Expe- | riments in Preferving and Conferving, | l’hyficke, and Surgery, Cookery | and Hufwifery. | LONDON, | Printed by M. P. for Richard Meighen, next to the | Middle Temple in Fleetftreet. 1639. | Small 40. Sigs. A to H in fours; or pp. [2] 59 [3]. Vignette of a winged skull resting on a scythe and bone crossed and surmounted by a sandglass, with the motto “non plvs” below the skull ; the whole enclosed in a scroll and flower border. This first edition, “ notwithstanding the disorderly and confused jumbling together of things of different kinds,” as “ M. B.” puts it, was very well received and, a second being called for, the said “ M. B.,” who may or may not have been the original author, or who may be simply M. Bedell, the publisher of this new edition, “resolved” (as he says in his preface addressing the ladies) “ to smooth your way a little, by bringing each particular to its proper head, or (since its called A Cabinet) laying each J ewel in his peculiar box; and so having fitted it for readier use, to have sent it abroad again to salute your gentle hands, the second time.” “ But,” he continues, “ hearing in the mean time of certain rare Experiments, and choice extractions of Oyls, Waters, &c. the practice of a Noble hand, and of approved Abilities (to testifie how ready I am to further ingenuous undertakings in this kind) I have with much pains, * Transactions of the Glasgow Arckccological Society, N.S., 1890, I., pp. 309-10 (Reprint, IV., pp. 11-12) ; 454 (Reprint, V., p. 38); 1903, IV., p. 101 (Reprint, Supp. IV., p. 9). [See “ Addenda,” § 59.] t Ibid., 1890, I., pp. 459-60 (Reprint, V., pp. 43-44.). J Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, 1903, N.S., IV., p. 114 (Reprint, Supp. IV., p. 22).