31 OCTOBER 1908, Page 25

A Book of Simples. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. 14s.

net.) —We are told in the introduction to A Book of Simples that the original was in all probability the still-room book of some manor or large farm. And in this character it casts a sidelight on the domestic life of the eighteenth century which gives it a particular interest. Remedies for various ills form a large part of the contents, for the housewife of those days bad, indeed, to be some- thing of a physician. These recipes are interesting, though not of so lurid a character as some of those found in the older herbals, and they do not err on the side of over-modesty in the cures they claim to effect. One ointment applied to the head is said to restore the memory ! Unfortunately, we cannot add that the words " Probatum est " which are affixed to some of the simples appear in this case. The book is charmingly got up, the binding being a reduced facsimile of the original. And we aro told that great care has been taken to reproduce exactly the spelling and punctuation, or, rather, lack of punctuation. Surely it is a little out of keeping with this exactness that the long "s" should be used throughout the book, when, according to the facsimile page at the commencement, in the original it only occurs in the case of the double "5."