68 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



of his day. But besides " medlars, quinces, Wardon pears, 

 peaches, and pears of St. Regula," he adds such fruits as 

 oranges, lemons, pomegranates, myrrh, and spices, and other 

 things equally incredible. 



Another classical writer of uncertain date was Macer. An 

 author of that name was contemporary with Virgil, but the 

 writer of the Herbal which was translated into many languages 

 must have lived at some later date, as he quotes Galen. It 

 is strictly a herbal treating of the medicinal uses of herbs and 

 spices. The old translations are valuable, as giving the English 

 equivalents of the Latin names, and Macer's was such a 

 common hand-book, that anyone planting a herb garden, would 

 try to obtain as many of the plants mentioned by him, as 

 could be found in England at that period. The name of the 

 first translator of Macer is lost in obscurity, but there is 

 a manuscript translation, dated 1373, by John Lelamour, 

 schoolmaster of Hertford,"^ and several other early translations 

 exist, although the book was not printed until about 1530. 

 One of them is curious, from the additions made by the 

 translator or transcriber, of some plants known to him, and 

 not mentioned by Macer.t He subjoins also some further 

 medical recipes, which indicate more of the usual plants of a 

 herb garden. The following example is the recipe given for 

 curing the pestilence : — " Do take and medele, pimpernoll, 

 sauge, auance, seint mary gouldes, tansey, sorell', and columbyne, 

 stampe these VH erbes and drink the ioiuse of hem in ole 

 ale or clene water and it wole distroie the pestilence be it 

 never so felle." 



Further information about gardens is to be gained from 

 other medical works. There is an English fourteenth-century 

 medical poem preserved in MS. in the Royal Library, Stockholm, 

 which contains some graphic descriptions of flowers. With 

 regard to the good qualities of rosemary, the author says: — 

 " Rosmarine is bothen erbe & tre, hot and drie of kende 

 hys lewys arn euc^more grene & newer more falty as techy 

 bokes of fysik and ek bokys of skole of sallerne wrot to ye 



* Sloane, No. 5, Sec. 3. f MS. circa 1440, in the Library at Didlington. 



