NATURE AND BOOKS, 27 



I remember taking sly glances when I was a very 

 little boy at an old Culpepper's Herbal, heavily bound in 

 leather and curiously illustrated. It was so deliciously 

 wicked to read about the poisons ; and I thought per- 

 haps it was a book like that, only in papyrus rolls, that 

 was used by the sorceress who got ready the poisoned 

 mushrooms in old Rome. Youth's ideas are so imagi- 

 native, and bring together things that are so widely 

 separated. Conscience told me I had no business to 

 read about poisons ; but there was a fearful fascination 

 in hemlock, and I recollect tasting a little bit — it was 

 very nasty. At this day, nevertheless, if any one wishes 

 to begin a pleasant, interesting, unscientific acquaintance 

 with English plants, he would do very well indeed to get 

 a good copy of Culpepper. Grey hairs had insisted in 

 showing themselves in my beard when, all those weary 

 years afterwards, I thought I would like to buy the still 

 older Englishman, Gerard, who had no Linnaeus to 

 guide him, who walked about our English lanes centuries 

 J ago. What wonderful scenes he must have view^ed \vhen 

 they were all a tangle of wild flowers, and plants that 

 are now scarce were common, and the old ploughs, and 

 the curious customs, and the wild red-deer — it would 

 make a good picture, it really would, Gerard studying 

 English orchids ! Such a volume !— hundreds of pages, 

 yellow of course, close type, and marvellously well 

 printed. The minute care they must have taken in 

 those early days of printing to get up such a book — a 

 wonderful volume both in bodily shape and contents. 

 Just then the only copy I could hear of was much 

 damaged. The cunning old bookseller said he could 

 make it up ; but I have no fancy for patched books, they 

 are not genuine ; I would rather have them deficient ; 

 and the price was rather long, and so I went Gerardless. 



