XVi 
attention to indigenous botany, and an impetus was given to the study, which no previous writer 
had succeeded in accomplishing; a comparison of Lyte’s Herball with that under notice, will 
readily exemplify this. Of his family matters we know next to nothing; he was married,” and his 
wife assisted him professionally, but no hint is given of any other member of his family. The 
baptismal registers of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, which commence in t 558, might throw some light 
upon this point, but the task would be a long and tedious one, in the total absence of a clue to guide 
the searcher to any particular period. 
The list of names of his acquaintances, more than fifty, scattered through the Herball, is too long 
to give here. He received plants from all the then accessible parts of the globe, and from men of 
almost every rank in life. Robin of Paris, previously mentioned, Camerarius of Nuremburg, Lord 
Zouch, Nicholas Lete, and John Franqueville, the last two London merchants, Thomas Edwards, and 
James Garret, apothecaries, were amongst the contributors of exotic plants, whilst for indigenous, 
the names most frequently appearing are Thomas Hesketh, a Lancashire gentlemen, and Stephen 
Bredwell, a physician. Gerard dispatched one of his assistants, as a ship’s surgeon to the 
Mediterranean, in the Hercules, that he might bring home some new plants. He, himself, had 
travelled over a large part of England, but Salmon’s statement as to his living in Lincolnshire * 
refers to Johnson. There is no will of Gerard’s at Somerset House, but it is not probable that he 
acquired wealth; the printer of the Herball in this respect, was more successful than the compiler. 
A half length portrait of Gerard, engraved by William Rogers, faces p. 1. of the Herball; he 
holds a branch of the Potato plant. Beneath are his own arms, those of the City of London, and 
‘of the Company of Barber-Surgeons. 
A reduced copy of this portrait appears on the title page of Johnson’s edition, and 
Sir J. E. Smith possessed a copper plate’ of another engraved by Hall, much worn, but I have 
not succeeded in tracing it, nor have I seen any impression from it. 
5? Ger. 695. 533 Ger. 1304. 54 Salm. Herb. i. 64. 535 Rees’ Cyc. art. Gerard. 
