the handwriting bore no slight resemblance
to that which puzzled Tony Lumpkin, we
patiently set to work to transcribe some of
the most remarkable "remedies" contained
in the precious volume.

Oliver Goldsmith has said, in the "Citizen
of the World," that the epidemic of England
is the fear of mad dogs. The apprehension
appears to be of old date, for the receipt-books
of our ancestors are filled with remedies
against their bite. The Ayscough MS. gives us
various examples, two of which we select—one
simply medicinal, the other purely occult:—
"A cataplasm made of nutts, with an onion,
salt, and honey, helpeth the biting of a madd
dogg." We should value this receipt more than
we do, if we could feel quite certain who it is
intended to benefit; for as the sentence stands,
it appears doubtful, whether the object be to
assist dogs in biting, or patients in recovering.

The charm receipt is not a very difficult
one to remember:—"For the bite of a madd
dogg, say 'Lemus, Lamus, Remus, Ramus,
Oxiologe!'"  It is to be presumed that this
formula must be uttered before you are
bitten:  few dogs, we conceive, would be mad
enough to bite the person who repeated it.

This view of the case is confirmed by what
you are advised to do after the bite has
actually been perpetrated. "Charme for
those who are madd, man or beast. The
haire being cutt off, lay betony to the mould of
the head. Then wright theis words on a peece
of cheese, 'Antanbragon, Tetragrammaton,'
and give the party so diseased." The art of
writing on cheese is one of the secrets which,
unfortunately, our ancestors have not handed
down to us. If they had but left a receipt
for that also, we would at once have made a
large investment—say in "single Gloucester"
—and sent in a tender to the Governors of
St. Luke's.

Having made our patient sane, let us see
what the Ayscough MS. recommends to keep
him so: "At such time as menne sow beanes,
take a beane, and put it into the harte of a
black catt, being reddy rosted. Then bury it
in a dunghill; and, when they be ripe, carry
one about thee, and thou shalt never goe
madd."

We regret to remark, that in all these
simple and easy remedies, there is always
some obscurity as to the manner of reducing
them to practice. What we want to know
here is, which is to be roasted—the bean, or
the cat's heart?  Roasting beans is a very
familiar process, as all coffee-dealers know;
cats, too, have been roasted, as Spanish
novelists assure us—so there is no difficulty
about the cookery; but the question
remains—which?  We pass over the pleasant
notion of carrying about one's person an
article that had been so agreeably inhumed,
and merely observe, that we think it impossible
anybody could go mad who adopted this
remedy.

Our ancestors stood greatly in fear of being
poisoned; and perhaps, in the days when a
pair of perfumed gloves could quietly accomplish
the poisoner's purpose, they were not so
far wrong.  Here is a remedy for a poisoned
wound: "Take a toad and put it into a glass,
and stopp it very close;  inclose this glass
in some earthen vessel filled full with sand,
thereby the better to prevent it breaking; so
sett it over the fire till it be consumed to
ashes, and apply them to the place wounded,
and it is a present remedy." Slightly cruel,
as far as the toad is concerned; but that is a
trifle.

Let us try another, for the bite of a scorpion:
it is worthy of King Midas: "Saye to
an asse, secretly, and as it were whispering in
his eare,  'I am bitten with a scorpion.'"  A
remedy which gives rise to such natural
good-fellowship deserves to be a successful
one.

The following receipt is recommended to
young officers going out to join their
regiments in the West Indies: "If onions be
eaten raw" (though this would scarcely be
allowed, if the regiment was at all "crack "),
"and strong wine be drunk frequently after
them, they are good against the biting of
serpents; and are good for them that are
infected with poison, and for such as have
cold passions."

Amongst the most annoying disorders of
the olden time, the colic was pre-eminent.
That universal specific "punch" had not then
been discovered, and our ancestors were
limited to colder prescriptions. The Ayscough
MS. says: " Olde decrepit cockes have
softer flesh than those which are younger;
and a pottage thereof is held good for the
colic passion."  Nobody would greatly object
to cock-a-leekie, but the next cure for the
same complaint is not quite so pleasant; it
suggests the remark, that the remedy is worse
than the disease:  "Horse dung, drunk in
wine, will prevent the colick."  Few persons,
afflicted with the ailment, would, we fancy,
be inclined to try the antidote; but our ancestors
were not the nicest in their tastes.  Many
of their receipts, though simple, were
comprehensive.

"The juice of pomegranates dropped in the
eyes is a remedy for the yellow jaundice."
"If the feet of those that have the gout be
washed with the broth of turnips, it will
mitigate the pain."  Here is a quaint intimation:
"Asparagus doth mollify the belly
gently."  We should imagine the next remedy
to be of doubtful efficacy: "To heare well.
Stop up the eares with good dry sewet."

Let us turn from these plain specifics to those
which owed their value to an occult influence.
Here is one for the headache, only available,
however, we apprehend, for the lady of Mr.
Calcraft:  "A charme for the headache. Tie a
halter about your head wherewith one hath
been hanged."  Tied a little lower, it would
cure not only the headache, but all  "the
natural ills that flesh is heir to."  The next