196 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Within a year, or a little more, there was issued an edition in 

 German, this augmented by six more plates. Then in 1545 there 

 came out, as if in condescension to the class of the unlettered, an 

 inexpensive edition of the plates only, and this was so successful 

 that a second issue was made in that same year; both these were 

 in octavo. After that there were not a few small-sized and cheap 

 editions brought out, with Latin text, but with figures so greatly 

 reduced in size as to be of little use. With these, however, Fuchsius 

 had nothing to do. 



During the long tenure of the professorship at Tubingen, which 

 covered nearly half his lifetime, there was no return to that critical 

 work upon the history of medicinal plants with which he had 

 inaugurated his career as botanical author; nor were there any 

 more than casual questionings of nature even as to the affinities 

 of plants. But the botanical artists were kept at work. To have 

 more plants figured, and to formulate a page of text to accompany 

 each plate, gave him pleasant respite from professional work, and 

 promised greater fame and fortune. Before his death he had 

 ready for the press the plates and descriptive texts of fifteen hun- 

 dred plants; a work which, if it had been printed, would have made 

 three folio volumes as large as the Historia Stirpium. But when 

 all was done, no publisher could be found who would undertake the 

 issuing of so vast a work without the advance of a considerable 

 sum of money. This the author would not perhaps could not 

 accede to, and the manuscript remained unpublished. 1 



In the original Latin edition of 1542, the Introductory Epistle, 

 addressed to the Margrave of Brandenburg, is a document deserving 

 fuller notice than can here be given it. It is a rather lengthy 

 discourse, but withal instructive as to the condition of botany 

 at the time, and exceedingly well written; amounting to something 

 like an abstract of the history of medical botany from the earliest 

 times down to his own date. As a piece of writing it reveals in its 

 author general abilities altogether superior to what I can not but 

 consider the mediocrity of his gifts as a botanist. It is in these 

 introductoiy pages that he earns for himself the praise of being 

 a fair and equitable judge and critic of the work of others, of 

 whatever race, religion, or nationality. 2 At a time when it was 

 usual in Germany to depreciate, if not to denounce, all French and 

 Italian efforts to restore botany, Fuchsius proclaims it that they 

 are all inexpressibly indebted to such great scholars as Hermolaus 



1 Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, vol. iv, p. 313. 



1 "^quissimus majorum suorum judex." Sprengel, Hist., vol. i, p. 324. 



