L'OBEL 33 



became so considerable that he was made physician to 

 William the Silent. Not long after the assassination of 

 the prince L'Obel was appointed superintendent of the 

 physic-garden set up at Hackney by Lord Edward 

 Zouche. He now busied himself with English botany, 

 and was the first to note several species native to 

 Middlesex. Among the English botanists whose acquaint- 

 ance he made was Gerard, whom he esteemed very 

 lightly. One of L'Obel's daughters was married to a 

 London citizen (James Coel, of Highgate), and this 

 connexion may have helped to detain him in England ; 

 he died (no doubt in his daughter's house) at Highgate 

 in 1616. 



L'Obel can hardly have been an amiable man ; he 

 was inclined to boast, and often wrote contemptuously 

 of his predecessors or contemporaries. But he was 

 laborious and sagacious, and botany owes a good deal to 

 him. The Lobelia, named after him by Plumier in 1702, 

 helps to keep his memory fresh. 



His botanical works {Adversaria, Ohservationes, 

 Kruydhoeck, Icones, &c.) were much esteemed in their 

 day, and went through several editions. The modern 

 reader finds the Latin style dry and clumsy, and the 

 definitions few and obscure, while there is far too much 

 of an obsolete pharmacy. The woodcuts engraved 

 expressly for these works are small and of no great 

 merit. Larger and better ones are often borrowed from 

 the books of Dodoens or Clusius, with both of whom 

 L'Obel lived for some years on intimate terms ; Chris- 

 topher Plantin, who published for all three, was no doubt 

 glad to repeat in a succession of books the blocks which 

 he had paid for. 



We shall now notice some features of these volumes 

 which are of biological interest. 







