1861.] CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. 137 



mentions in his epistle to his " courteous and well-willing readers 

 the excellent worke of Master Doctor Turner." 



In John Parkinson's notice of his predecessors, Turner's name 

 does not appear. Johnson, the learned editor of Gerard, gives 

 the following testimony to the merits of this great botanist : — 



" Let me now at last looke home, and see who we haue had that haue 

 taken pains in this kinde. The first that I finde worthy of mention is Dr. 

 William Turner, the first of whose works that I haue seene was a little 

 booke of the names of herbes, in Greek, Latine, English, Dutch, and 

 Trench, etc., printed at London, anno 1548. In the yeare 1551 he set 

 forth his Herbal, or History of Plants, where he giues the figures of 

 Fuchias for the most part. He giues the names in Latine, Greeke, Dutch, 

 and Trench. He did not treat of many plants. His method was according 

 to the Latine alphabet. He was a man of good judgment and learning, 

 and well perfonned wat he took in hand."* 



It may be inferred that Turner's ' Herbal ' was then, as it still 

 is, a scarce book, and it is hoped that this will be received as an 

 apology for the seeming neglect with which it has been treated 

 by both ancient and modern botanists. f 



We will now give an outline of the contents of this primary and 

 most excellent English Herbal, premising this remark, viz. that 

 our object is to elucidate the history of our English native species, 

 rather than to enter upon the great subject of plants in general. 



Both Johnson and Pulteney relate that the arrangement of the 

 ' Herbal ' is alphabetical, according to the Latin names ; but the 

 author does not adhere very strictly to this order; he employs 

 both Greek and Latin names, which are followed by those 

 under which his plants were known in Germany, France, and 

 England ; for the first plant on the first page of the first edition 

 (part i.) is Absinthium, and the two last are Agrimony and Bean, 

 AgrimoniaX and Faba. 



* Johnson's ' Gerard,' Address to the Reader. 



t Dr. Pulteney, who devotes about twenty pages of his work to our author, 

 remarks " that the succeeding herbalists, Gerard, Johnson, and Pai'kinson, seem 

 not to have paid due honour to liis merit and learning ;" and subsequently states 

 that " in justice to Tm-ner they should have noticed all the plants he has recorded, 

 particularly the natives of England." 



" Ray," he fm-ther relates, '• at the distance of nearly a century, was sensible of 

 his worth, having styled him a man of solid erudition and judgment " (Pulteney's 

 Sketches, vol. i. p. 76). See Kaii Hist. Plantarum generahs, in explicatione nom. 

 abbreviaturum, etc. 



X He employs the Greek name Eupatoria for Agrimony. This uncertainty about 

 N. S. VOL. V. T 



