This herbal contains many evidences of Turner’s independence of thought. He fought against what he regarded as superstition in science with the same ardour with which he entered upon religious polemics. The legend of the human form of the Mandrake receives scant mercy at his hands. As he points out, “The rootes which are conterfited and made like litle puppettes and mammettes, which come to be sold in England in boxes, with heir, and such forme as a man hath, are nothyng elles but folishe feined trifles, and not naturall. For they are so trymmed of crafty theves to mocke the poore people with all, and to rob them both of theyr wit and theyr money. I have in my tyme at diverse tymes taken up the rootes of Mandrag out of the grounde, but I never saw any such thyng upon or in them, as are in and upon the pedlers rootes that are comenly to be solde in boxes.” Turner was, however, by no means the first to dispute the Mandrake superstition; in the Grete Herball of 1526 it is definitely refuted, and it is ignored in some works that are of even earlier date. The hoax was long-lived, for we find Gerard also exposing it in 1597.
Turner had a fine scorn for any superstitious notions he detected in the writings of his contemporaries, and seems to have been particularly pleased if he could show that in any disputed matter they were wrong, while the ancients, for whom he had a great reverence, were right. For instance he has a great deal to say about a theory, held by Mattioli, in opposition to the opinions of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, that the Broomrape (Orobanche) could kill other plants merely by its baneful presence, without any physical contact. He declares that this view is against reason, authority and experience, and points out that the figure which Mattioli gives is faulty, in omitting to show the roots, which are the real instruments of destruction. He triumphantly concludes, “And as touchynge experience, I know that the freshe and yong Orobanche hath commyng out of the great roote, many lytle strynges ... wherewith it taketh holde of the rootes of the herbes that grow next unto it. Wherefore Matthiolus ought not so lyghtly to have defaced the autorite of Theophrast so ancient and substantiall autor.” Turner’s work is largely occupied with the opinions of early writers, especially Dioscorides, and his respect for their authority is a somewhat curious trait in a character which seems, in other directions, to have been so unorthodox. He did not however treat their books as the last word on the subject, and the third part of his herbal is occupied with plants “whereof is no mention made nether of ye old Grecianes nor Latines.”
Turner’s herbal is arranged alphabetically, and does not show evidence of any interest in the relationships of the plants. It is as individuals, and essentially as “simples,” that he regarded them. His descriptions of them were often vividly expressed, though not markedly original. It must be remembered that botany was not the only science which he studied. He wrote about birds, and also contributed information about English fishes to Gesner’s ‘Historia Animalium.’
Text-fig. 52. “Tabaco” = Nicotiana, Tobacco [Monardes, Joyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde, 2nd ed. 1580].
Before discussing the next herbal which appeared in this country, we may refer in passing to a botanical book which hardly comes under this heading, but which is of interest in relation to the history of the time. Nicolas Monardes, a Spanish physician, had published, in 1569 and 1571, some account of the plants which had lately been brought to Europe from the recently discovered West Indies, and this work was translated into English by John Frampton in 1577, under the title of ‘Joyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde.’ This book contains a good figure of the Tobacco plant (Text-fig. [52]), perhaps the first ever published, and also a long account of its virtues. The reader is told that the Negroes and Indians after inhaling tobacco smoke “doe remaine lightened, without any wearinesse, for to laboure again: and thei dooe this with so greate pleasure, that although thei bee not wearie, yet thei are very desirous for to dooe it: and the thyng is come to so muche effecte, that their maisters doeth chasten theim for it, and doe burne the Tabaco, because thei should not use it.”
Twenty-seven years after the appearance of the first part of Turner’s herbal, a translation of Dodoens’ work, made by Henry Lyte, appeared in England. Lyte was born about 1529, and, towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII, he became a student at Oxford. He was a man of means, addicted to travel, and his temperament seems to have been much milder and less revolutionary than that of his predecessor Turner. He did not perhaps add very greatly to the knowledge of English botany, but he did a valuable service in introducing Dodoens’ herbal into this country. His book, which was published in 1578, was professedly a translation of the French version of Dodoens’ Crǔÿdeboeck of 1554, which had been made by de l’Écluse in 1557. Lyte’s copy of this work, with copious manuscript notes, and, on the title-page, the quaint endorsement, “Henry Lyte taught me to speake Englishe,” is preserved in the British Museum. This copy proves that Lyte was no mere mechanical translator, for the work is annotated and corrected with great care, references to de l’Obel and Turner being introduced.
The title of Lyte’s book is as follows: ‘A Niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes: wherin is contayned the whole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of Herbes and Plantes: their divers and sundry kindes: their straunge Figures, Fashions, and Shapes: their Names, Natures, Operations, and Vertues: and that not onely of those which are here growyng in this our Countrie of Englande, but of all others also of forrayne Realmes, commonly used in Physicke. First set foorth in the Doutche or Almaigne tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, Physition to the Emperour: And nowe first translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte Esquyer.’ The illustrations used in the book were the same as those which had appeared in the translation by de l’Écluse, and were for the most part copies of those in the octavo edition of Fuchs’ herbal, with some additional blocks, which had been cut specially for Dodoens. The result is that many of the same figures occur both in Turner and in Lyte. There are said to be 870 figures in Lyte’s herbal, of which about thirty are new. Of the latter Centaurea rhaponticum is an example (Text-fig. [53]).