general reference to odours as “strengthening the memory.” Here is one for which I am indebted to my friend F. W. Watkyn-Thomas :
“Olfactus (loq.)—
Hence do I likewise minister perfume
Unto the neighbour brain, perfume of force,
To cleanse your head, and make your fancy bright
To refine wit and sharp invention,
And strengthen memory : from whence it came
That old devotion incense did ordain
To make man's spirit more apt for things divine. …
(“Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senscs,” Act IV., Sc. 5, Anthony Brewer (circa 1600) : Dodsley’s “Old Plays,” Vol V., p. 179, 1825.)
And Montaigne may be alluding to it when he says :
“Physicians might (m my opinion) draw more use and good from odours than they do. For myself have often perceived, that according unto their strength and qualitie, they change and alter, and move my spirit, and worke strange effects in me : Which makes me approve the common saying, that invention of incense and perfumes in Churches, so ancient and so far-dispersed throughout all nations and religions, had an especiall regard to rejoyce, to comfort, to quicken and to rowze and to purifie our senses, …”
The Jacobean herbalists and therapeutists in general, as we shall sec later on, frequently credit aromatics with the power of strengthening the memory. But, so far as my reading goes, I have failed to find a clear and unmistakable description of this peculiar phenomenon
