INTRODUCTION xxxiii 



associated moral, personal and mythological qualities 

 with terms of which the primary application was to 

 physical properties." 



I must apologise also for the paucity of notes to Sir 

 T. Browne and Evelyn. It would have been quite 

 impossible to annotate these writers adequately without 

 the notes swamping the text. It therefore seemed 

 better to retain as much of the text as possible, omit- 

 ting even many of the notes of Browne's learned 

 Editor, Simon Wilkins, (whom the letters F. L. S. 

 may have qualified to shed light through the laby- 

 rinth of botanical terms) since it is for the lover of 

 garden literature rather than for the Botanist, that the 

 volume is destined. Satisfactory annotation would 

 have involved references to all the early Herbalists, 

 and most of the modern Biblical critics and exegetists. 1 



It was said by Johnson of Edmund Burke's con- 

 versation, that he wound into his subject like a serpent. 

 Browne's literary method might be likened rather to 

 the coils of the python or boa-constrictor involving it 

 in its Laocoonean embrace ; or like the Octopus that 

 " travailleur de la mer " almost stifling and strangling 

 his subject in the gigantic tentacles of his style. At 



1 At the end of the volume will be found a few bio- 

 graphical details of the chief Primitift of Botany. 



C 





