HISTORY OF BOTANY. 61 



describing 3800 plants. He died about 1G50, over 80 years 

 of age. 



I should not think it necessary to notice Culpeper, were 

 it not that the * English Physician' or ' Culpeper's Herbal ' 

 is, or was until quite recently, the most popular of hand- 

 books with botanists of the operative class ; therefore I feel 

 bound not to pass him over. 



Nicholas Culpeper was born in London, 1616, and was an 

 astrologer, who referred the medicinal properties of all 

 plants to planetary and stellar influences. ' The English 

 Physician ' was published 1652, and is, of the sort, a medical 

 work. Like the * Grete Herbal ' it has passed through 

 several editions, but certainly we cannot account for this as 

 in the other case, by its being the only English work on the 

 subject, and therefore of necessity the best. Culpeper's 

 superstition is equalled by his wonderful self-conceit, which 

 might only raise a smile, were it not that it frequently leads 

 him to reflect offensively on the works of other and clearer- 

 headed phj^sicians. He thus addressed his wife, to whom 

 he left his manuscripts : — " The works that I have published 

 to the world (though envied by some illiterate physicians) 

 have merited such just applause, that thou maj^est be 

 confident in proceeding to publish anything I leave thee, 

 especially this master-piece ; assuring my friends and 

 countrymen, that they will receive as much benefit by this, 

 as by my Dispensatorj^, and that incomparable piece, called 

 Semiotica Uranica enlarged, and English Physician," — 

 which is highly probable. Perhaps this self- exaltation is 

 rather to be pitied than blamed, being a natural result of 

 superstition, which may often be noticed in var3dng degree, 

 when an easy faith oversteps reasonable bounds.* It 



-'' Su- Walter Scott says in 'Guy Mannering': — "The behef in 

 astrology was almost universal in the middle of the seventeenth 



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