CHAPTER VIII. 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE. 



•' Bring hether the Pinke and purple ( ullambine 

 With gelliflowers, 

 Bring Coronations, and Sops in wine, 



Worne of Paramoures 

 Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies 

 And Cowslips and Kingcups and loved Lillies, 

 The pretty Pawnee 

 And the Chevisaunce 

 Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice." 



Spenser. 



^T^^HILE Henry VIII. was reigning in England, great 

 advances were being made on the Continent in the 

 science of Botany. The Botanic Garden at Padtia was fotuided 

 ii^ 1545' and was quickly followed by one at Pisa. But it was 

 nearly a century later before we could boast of one in England. 

 The rest of Europe was before us too, in Botanical litera- 

 ture. The Aggregator Practicus di Simplicihiis was probably 

 printed by Schoeffer between 1475-80. The Ortus Sanitatus 

 was printed in 1485, and was the basis of all the botanical 

 works that immediately followed it. It was also the foundation 

 of the English Crete Herball. This book was printed by 

 Peter Treveris, and several editions of it appeared. The first 

 of these is said to have been printed in 15 16, but the existence 

 of a copy of this issue seems somewhat doubtful, the earliest 

 edition, of which many copies are extant, being that of 1526. 

 A translation of Macer's Herbal was printed about 1530, but 

 it is to William Turner that we owe the first really English 

 Herbal. Herbal literature has perhaps more in common with 



