Gerarde, in his “Historie of Plants,” refers to Galen as an authority, quoting from his “Faculties of Nourishments” in defence of the plant he selects, but does not seem to have heard of the old belief in its forming a food for the immortals, and can indeed give it no higher effect in staying the ravages of time and decay than that “the ashes of this Bulbe mixed with oile and hens grease cureth the falling of the haire.” Parkinson, in his “Theatrum Botanicum,” brings the plant down to a still lower level, and not only sees no poetry in it, but rather more than hints at a fraud, for he says—“The countrey people know no other name thereof or propertie appropriate unto it but knavery, which, whether they named it so in knavery, or knew any use of knavery in it, I neither can learn nor am much inquisitive thereafter.”
We may here remark parenthetically that the old herbals are full of the most delightfully quaint reading, and are often freely illustrated with pictures at least as curious, the frontispieces especially being of the most elaborate and allegorical nature. The “Rariorum Plantarum Historia” of Clusius is now before us as we write, and we learn from its title-page that it was published at Antwerp in the year 1601. We have Adam on one side, in the simplicity of costume of Eden’s earliest days, and on the other Solomon, with crown and royal robes and sceptre, bearing in his hands a book. Adam is claimed by the mediæval herbalists as not only a tiller of the ground, but also as a student of botanical science, while Solomon, we all remember, wrote a treatise that dealt with plants, from the lordly cedar to the lowly hyssop of the wall. Above Adam, in a pot, is a Turk’s-cap lily, and by his side is the fritillary, while Solomon has associated with him the cyclamen and the crown imperial. The illustrations in the body of the book are very numerous and quaint, and, though the book, it will be remembered, is a history of rare plants, include such common things as the marsh marigold, the bindweed, and the yellow loosestrife. Clusius, or Charles d’Ecluse, to give him his true name, was a Dutch botanist, born 1526, died 1609. He was for some time the director of the Botanical Garden at Vienna, and afterwards the Professor of Botany at Leyden University, where he died.
The Herbal published by Matthiolus at Venice in the year 1633 is a particularly fine book. The illustrations are very large, very numerous, and very good. Another interesting book to see is that of Dodoens, translated by Henry Lyte, “Armigeri, Somersetensis, Angli.” The title-page of our copy of the work runs as follows:—“A Nievve Herball, or Historie of Plantes: vvherein is contayned the vvhole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of Herbes and Plantes: their diuers and sundry kindes: their straunge Figures, Fashions, and Shapes: their Names, Natures, Operations, and Vertues: and that not onely of those whiche are here growyng in this our Countrie of Englande but of all others also of forrayne Realmes commonly vsed 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. At London by me Gerard Dewes, dwelling in Pawles Churchyarde at the signe of the Swanne, 1578.”
Still earlier in time is “The Vertuose Boke of Distyllacyon of the waters of all maner of Herbes, first compyled by Jherom Bruynswyke, and now newly translated out of Duyche, by Lawrence Andrew,” the edition before us being published in London in the year 1527.
In 1551 we find the first appearance of Turner’s Herbal, a book that was for a long time a standard authority. It is divided into three sections—
(1.) “A New Herball, wherein are conteyned the names of Herbes in Greke, Latin, Englysh, Duch, Frenche, and in the Potecaries and Herbaries Latin, with the properties, degrees, and naturall places of the same, gathered and made by Wylliam Turner, Physicion unto the Duke of Somersettes Grace, imprinted at London, by Steven Mierdman, Anno 1551.
(2.) A Book of the natures and properties as well as of the bathes of England as of other bathes in Germany and Italy, etc., by William Turner, Doctor of Physik, imprinted at Collen, by Arnold Birckman, in the year of our Lorde, MDLXII.
(3.) A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye, etc., translated out of the Almaine Speche into English, by John Hollybush, imprinted at Collen by Arnold Birckman, MDLXI.”
The latter part of this “homely physick booke for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye” was really the work, so far at least as translation went, of Miles Coverdale, the notable divine and translator of the Bible, Hollybush being merely a pseudonym.
The only other quaint old tome that we need here refer to, though, of course, it must be clearly understood that we have named but a few of the delightful old books on plant-lore that have come down to us, is the somewhat specialised work of Newton. Its title is as follows:—