DIV1 BOTANICI. 39 



but passeth for one of the poisonous class of vegetables. Lemnius* 

 tells us, how being seated in his study, a sudden drowsiness seized 

 him, caused by a Mandrake-apple he had laid on a shelf." He next 

 proceeds to shew that, in the flowers which Reuben brought home, 

 there must have been " a delectable smell ;" and then he concludes 

 that, " for any one positively to affirm these lovely flowers were 

 Mandrakes, is too magisterial and singular an opinion : 'tis likely the 



• Lievin Lemmens, in latin Levinus Lemnius, relates this anecdote with 

 due solemnity, in his remarks on the nature and properties of the Man- 

 drakes which Rachel obtained by coaxing, " eblandila est," from Leah her 

 sister: it forms the second chapter of his singular but not uninstructive book, 

 Similitudinum ac Parabolarum qua: in Bibliis ex Herbis atque Arboribus desu- 

 mantur dilucida explicatio ; 12mo, Erphordice, 1581, with a good portrait of the 

 author, in a wood-cut, on the title-page. There is an English version of this, 

 intituled, An Herbal for the Bible ; containing a plaine and familiar exposi- 

 tion of such similitudes, parables, and metaphors, as are borrowed and taken 

 from Herbs, Plants, and Trees, by observation of their vertues and effects; 

 by Thomas Newton ; 8 vo, London, 1587. Lemnius makes a cursory obser- 

 vation on the efficacy of Reuben's Mandrakes, in another production of his 

 which is still more extraordinary. It is an elaborate treatise — De Occultis 

 Natura Miraculis ; 12mo, Antierpia, 1559 — with many subsequent editions 

 and translations. That into English is anonymous — The Secret Miracles of 

 Nature ; treating of Generation and the parts thereof; of the Soul and its 

 immortality ; of Plants and living creatures ; of Diseases, their symptoms 

 and cure ; and many other rarities not treated of by any author extant, by 

 that famous physitian Lsevinus Lemnius; folio, London, 1658. At p. 262, 

 the proposition is affirmed " that plants are of both sexes," and this is accom- 

 panied with the remarkable assertions, that " amongst herbs of the same 

 species there is a difference of the sex, for there is a conjunction between 

 them and a kind of matrimonial society, and hence it is that some plants are 

 called the male and others the female. The Arabians say that the females 

 will not bear without the males, the flowers and down of them, and some- 

 times the powder and dust, being strewed upon the females; wherefore 

 plants that have a vegetative faculty, do send a generative force and vital 

 spirit one into the other, and that by a secret consent of Nature and a hid- 

 den inspiration derived from the heat of the air and the sun and the genera- 

 tive spirit of the world." Now, to Cesalpino, 1583, and after him to Zaluzi- 

 ansky, 1592, is assigned the credit of being the first among the moderns to 

 speak about vegetable sexuality : here, however, are the statements of a 

 physician who, in 1559, discourses on the " Sexes of Plants" as on a well- 

 known and established doctrine. Dr. Lemmens practised as a physician at 

 Ziriczee, in Holland ; but, under grief for the death of his wife, he went into 

 the church, and died in 1568 : his numerous writings are vigorous and ele- 

 gant, and they enjoyed an extensive popularity. His translator, Dr. Thomas 

 Newton was a native of Cheshire ; and, in Biography, he is represented as 

 having been a schoolmaster, poet, divine, and physician ; he died in J607 : 

 hi? English versions of foreign literature were numerous. 



