A DICTIOXARY OF PLANT XA:N[ES 259 



compiler's purpose. If only Dr. Gerth van Wijk had consulted the 

 surviving compiler of the Dictionary of Englisli Plant Names, or 

 the English Dialect Dictionary, he might have saved himself much 

 unnecessary labour and his work would have given a far better repre- 

 sentation of English names. 



Of course a book of this kind must always from its nature be in- 

 complete, but as the compiler was making additions to the books 

 quoted, of which he gives a list, we are sorry he did not consult those 

 mentioned in our former notice, which would have enabled him to 

 add a large number of names in actual use to his enumeration. As it 

 is, however, he has given us the most comprehensive collection of 

 plant-names in existence, and one which cannot fail to be of service to 

 those concerned with popular nomenclature. 



Llysieulyfr Meddyginiaetliol a hriodolir i William Saleshury \_a 

 Herbal attributed to JVilliam Salesbury^ edited loith an 

 Introduction and Notes by E. Stais-ton Kobeets, B.A. 

 4to ; cloth, pp. Iviii, 275. Liverpool : flugh Evans & Sons, 

 1916. Price £1 Is. 



William Salesburt, or Salisbury (1520 ?-l 600), of whom a 

 full account is given by Mr. D. Lleufer Thomas in the Dictionary 

 of National Biography (I. 196-200 : 1897) was eminent as a 

 lexicographer, but is chiefly known in connection with his trans- 

 lation of the New Testament into Welsh. " In his later years," 

 Mr. Thomas tells us, " he wrote a Welsh Botanology, a transcript 

 of which, made in 1763 from the original manuscript, now lost, 

 was recently in the possession of John Peter (loan Pedr, of Bala)," 

 who published an account of it in Y Traethodydd for 1873 *. After 

 Peter's death, in 1877, it was acquired by the University College of 

 Wales at Aberystwith, whence it passed into the National Library 

 of Wales : it has now been published in a handsome quarto volume, 

 at the expense of the late Mr. John Morris, of Llansannon, to 

 whom it is fittingly dedicated. 



The editor, Mr. Stanton Roberts, has done his work exceeding!}^ 

 well, and has spared no pains in elaborating the Herbal. His 

 Introduction of Hfty pages gives, in four chapters, the history of 

 the MS., an account of the som-ces from which it was compiled, 

 a discussion of its authorship, and another as to the identitj^ of the 

 " Syr Thomas ap William " who borrowed Salesbury's manuscript in 

 1597. Mr. Roberts agrees with Peter in identifying him with 

 S3^r Thomas Wiliems of Trefriw — " the Sj^r prefixed to his name was 

 an ecclesiastical title " — who was a contemporar}'^ and neighbour of 

 Salesbury, and "perhaps best known as the author of the Dic- 

 tionarium Latino-Ca mbricum, which he completed in 1607." The 

 full and frequent references to plants in this work, and his allusions 



* This article is summarised by Mr. Thomas in the account of Welsh Botany 

 which forms Appendix B. of the Report of the Eoyal Commission on Land in 

 Wales (1896) and was reprinted in this Journal for 1898, pp. 10-23 : the passage 

 relating to Saleshury is on p. 12. Mr. Thomas says that Peter (1833-77) "was 

 himself an enthusiastic botanist," but we have no evidence in support of this 

 statement. 



