[1395] Id. 384. Corniani,vi. 25. Biogr. Univ. Yet, in the article on Rauwolf, a German naturalist, who published an account of his travels in the Levant as early as 1581, he is mentioned as one of the first qui ait parlé de l’usage de boire du café, et en ait décrit la preparation avec exactitude. It is possible that this book of Rauwolf being written in German, and the author being obscure in comparison with Prosper Alpinus, his prior claim has been till lately overlooked.
Gesner. 32. The critical examination of the ancients, the establishment of gardens, the travels of botanists thus furnished a great supply of plants; it was now required to compare and arrange them. Gesner first undertook this; he had formed a garden of his own at Zurich, and has the credit of having discovered the true system of classifying plants according to the organs of fructification; which however he does not seem to have made known, nor were his botanical writings published till the last century. Gesner was the first who mentions the Indian Sugarcane and the Tobacco, as well as many indigenous plants. It is said that he was used to chew and smoke tobacco, “by which he rendered himself giddy and in a manner drunk.”[1396] As Gesner died in 1564, this carries back the knowledge of tobacco in Europe several years beyond the above-mentioned treatise of Benzoni.
[1396] Sprengel, 373, 390.
Dodoens. 33. Dodoens, or Dodonæus, a Dutch physician, in 1553, translated into his own language the history of plants by Fuchs, to which he added 133 figures. These, instead of using the alphabetical order of his predecessor, he arranged according to a method which he thought more natural. “He explains,” says Sprengel, “well and learnedly the ancient botanists, and described many plants for the first time;” among these are the Ulex Europæus and the Hyacinthus non scriptus. The great aim of rendering the modern Materia Medica conformable to the ancient seems to have made the early botanists rather inattentive to objects before their eyes. Dodoens himself is rather a physician than a botanist, and is more diligent about the uses of plants than their characteristics. He collected all his writings, under the title Stirpium Historiæ Pemptades Sex, at Antwerp in 1583, with 1341 figures, a greater number than had yet been published.
Lobel. 34. The Stirpium Adversaria by Pena and Lobel, the latter of whom is best known as a botanist, was published at London in 1570. Lobel indeed, though a native of Lille, having passed most of his life in England, may be fairly counted among our botanists. He had previously travelled much over Europe. “In the execution of this work,” says Pulteney, “there is exhibited, I believe, the first sketch, rude as it is, of a natural method of arrangement, which however extends no further than throwing the plants into large tribes, families, or orders, according to the external appearance or habit of the whole plant or flower, without establishing any definitions or characters. The whole forms forty-four tribes. Some contain the plants of or two modern genera, others many, and some, it must be owned, very incongruous to each other. On the whole they are much superior to Dodoens’s divisions.”[1397] Lobel’s Adversaria contains descriptions of 1200 or 1500 plants with 272 engravings; the former are not clear or well expressed, and in this he is inferior to his contemporaries; the latter are on copper, very small, but neat.[1398] In a later work, the Plantarum Historia, Antwerp, 1576, the number of figures is very considerably greater, but the book has been less esteemed, being a sort of complement to the other. Sprengel speaks more highly of Lobel than the Biographie Universelle.
[1397] Historical Sketch, p. 102.
[1398] Sprengel, 399.
Clusius. 35. Clusius or Lecluse, born at Arras, and a traveller, like many other botanists, over Europe, till he settled at Leyden as professor of botany in 1593, is generally reckoned the greatest master of his science whom the age produced. His descriptions are remarkable for their exactness, precision, elegance, and method, though he seems to have had little regard to natural classification. He has added a long list to the plants, already known. Clusius began by a translation of Dodoens into Latin; he published several other works within the century.[1399]
[1399] Sprengel, 407. Biogr. Univ. Pulteney.