“Also if a man have lost his smellyng of the ayre that he may not draw his breath make a fire of the wood and bake his bread therewith, eate it and it shall keepe him well.
“Make thee a box of the wood of rosemary and smell to it and it shall preserve thy youth.”
That Banckes’s Herbal achieved immediate popularity is attested by the fact that the following year another edition of it was issued, and during the next thirty years various London printers issued the same book under different titles.[47] Robert Wyer[48] ascribed the authorship of those he issued to Macer, and in the edition of 1530 he added, after “Macer’s Herbal,” “Practysed by Dr. Lynacro.” Whether this statement is true it is impossible to discover, but we know that the great doctor died some years before Wyer set up as a printer, and his name does not appear in any of the subsequent editions of the herbal issued by other printers. In Wyer’s edition there are some good initial letters very similar to those used by Wynkyn de Worde.
The most interesting edition of the herbal is that printed by William Copland, in which first appear the additional chapters on “The virtues of waters stylled,” “The tyme of gathering of sedes” and “A general rule of all maner of herbes.” He issued two editions bearing the same title and differing only in the woodcuts and the colophon. The title is “A boke of the | propreties of Herbes called an her- | ball, whereunto is added the tyme ye | herbes, floures and Sedes shold | be gathered to be kept the whole, ye- | re, with the vertue of ye Herbes whē | they are stylled. Al- | so a generall rule of all ma- | ner of Herbes drawen | out of an auncyent | booke of Phisyck | by W. C.” The woodcut in the first edition is three “Tudor” roses in a double circle with a crown over one of the roses and across the riband “Kȳge of floures.” In the second edition the woodcut is a quaint little representation of a lady seated in a garden. One man standing behind her is holding her and another is walking towards her. The three figures are near a wall, on the other side of which several men are apparently conversing. Who W. C. was is uncertain. In the Dictionary of National Biography William Copland is said to be both the author and the printer of the book, but in many catalogues (notably in that of the British Museum) Walter Cary figures as the author. In a lengthy account of the Carys in Notes and Queries (March 29, 1913) Mr. A. L. Humphreys disposes conclusively of the supposition that W. C. can stand for Walter Cary.
“A Boke of the Properties of Herbes bears on the title-page the initials W. C., which may stand either for Copland or Cary. This was one of several editions of Banckes’s Herbal, then very popular, and although it may have been edited or promoted in some way by a Walter Cary, it could not have been by the one who wrote The Hammer for the Stone. The ‘Herball’ was issued somewhere about 1550 and various editions of it exist, but all these appeared when the Walter Cary we are considering was a child. There is, however, a connection between the Carys and herbals, because it is well known that Henry Lyte (1529-1607) of Lytes Cary was the famous translator of Dodoens’s Herball (1578), and he had a herbal garden at Lytes Cary.”
Ames in his Typographical Antiquities describes the two editions, which are identical, as though they were two different books, and ascribes one to Walter Cary and the other to William Copland. We have only Ames’s authority for the supposition that Copland was the compiler as well as the printer. The herbal in question is merely another edition of Banckes’s Herbal, but it is quite possible that the three additional chapters at the end were “drawen out of an auncyent booke of Physick” by Copland.[49]
Two editions of Banckes’s Herbal are ascribed, on account of the wording of the title, to Antony Askham, and the title is so attractive that it is a disappointment to find that the astrological additions “declaryng what herbes hath influence of certain sterres and constellations,” etc., do not appear in any known copy of the herbal. This astrological lore from the famous man who combined the professions of priest, physician and astrologer in the reign of Edward VI. would be of remarkable interest. But it has been pointed out by Mr. H. M. Barlow[50] that, if the bibliographers who have attributed the work to Askham had examined the title of the work with greater care, they would have observed that the phrase “by Anthonye Askham” refers not to the substance of the book itself (which is merely another edition of Banckes’s Herbal) but to the “Almanacke” from which the additions were intended to be taken, though apparently they were never printed. The title of “Askham’s” Herbal is—
“A lytel | herball of the | properties of her- | bes newely amended and corrected, | with certayne addicions at the ende | of the boke, declarying what herbes | hath influence of certaine Sterres | and constellations, whereby may be | chosen the beast and most luckye | tymes and dayes of their mini- | stracion, accordyinge to the | Moone being in the sig- | nes of heauen, the | which is dayly | appoynted | in the | Almanacke; made and gathered | in the yere of our Lorde god | M.D.L. the XII. day of Fe- | bruary by Anthonye | Askham Phi- | sycyon.
“(Colophon.) Imprynted at | London in Flete- | strete at the signe of the George | next to Saynte Dunstones | Churche by Wylly- | am Powell. | In the yeare of oure Lorde | M.D.L. the twelfe day of Marche.”
There are some charming prescriptions to be found in “Askham’s” Herbal. Under “rose,” for instance, we have recipes for “melroset,” “sugar roset,” “syrope of Rooses,” “oyle of roses” and “rose water.”