The receipts collected in this and other books for domestic practice are some of them so hyper-composite that even Tusser's garden could hardly supply all the indigenous ingredients; others are of the most fantastic kind, and for the most part they were as troublesome in preparation, and many of them as disgusting, as they were futile. That “Sovereign Water” which was invented by Dr. Stephens was composed of almost all known spices, and all savoury and odorous herbs, distilled in claret. With this Dr. Stephens “preserved his own life until such extreme old age that he could neither go nor ride; and he did continue his life, being bed-rid five years, when other physicians did judge he could not live one year; and he confessed a little before his death, that if he were sick at any time, he never used any thing but this water only. And also the Archbishop of Canterbury used it, and found such goodness in it that he lived till he was not able to drink out of a cup, but sucked his drink through a hollow pipe of silver.” Twenty-nine plants were used in the composition of Dr. Adrian Gilbert's most sovereign Cordial Water, besides hartshorn, figs, raisins, gillyflowers, cowslips, marygolds, blue violets, red rose-buds, ambergris, bezoar-stone, sugar, aniseed, liquorice, and to crown all, “what else you please.” But then it was sovereign against all fevers; and one who in time of plague should take two spoonsfull of it in good beer, or white wine, “he might walk safely from danger, by the leave of God.”—The Water of Life was distilled from nearly as many ingredients, to which were added a fleshy running capon, the loins and legs of an old coney, the red flesh of the sinews of a leg of mutton, four young chickens, twelve larks, the yolks of twelve eggs, and a loaf of white bread, all to be distilled in white wine.