XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



an abiding monument of the first age of 

 botanical lievival : — Commentarii ^^c. Sec. 

 post diver sarimi editionuni collationeui 

 infi^iitis locis audi 1598- The period 

 covered by the reign of Matthiolus has 

 been recognised as that in which Botany 

 took up an independent position as a 

 Science apart from Medicine. 



The middle and latter half of the six- 

 teenth century saw the second stage of this 

 Revival, a stage which has been aptly de- 

 scribed as that of the Fathers of Botanical 

 Science. Already, before the race of the 

 Commentators was fully run, a new school 

 of botanists was rising, who though by no 

 means emancipated from the authority of 

 Dioscorides, yet began in earnest to ob- 

 serve for themselves, to see plants with 

 curious and attentive eyes, and dili- 

 gently to make drawings of them. No- 

 where do we perceive a more genial 

 delight in Nature. To this set belong 

 Otto Brunfels of Strasburg; Leonard 

 Fuchs, who (as Hallara says) has secured 

 a verdant immortality in the well-known 

 Fuchsia ; William Turner, twice exiled for 



