INTRODUCTION. 1 1 



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" In a large caldron now the medicine boils, 

 Compounded of her late collected spoils, 

 Blending into the mash the various powers 

 Of wonder-working juices, roots, and flowers." 



Ovid. 



Our immortal bard, availing himself of the 

 credulity of the age, makes the weird sisters, 

 in their incantations, employ 



" Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark ; 



Liver of blaspheming Jew : 



Gall of goat, and slips of yew." 



Macbeth. 



* 



The English surgeons and apothecaries 

 began to attend to the cultivation of medi- 

 cinal herbs in the time of Henry the Eighth. 

 Gerard, the father of English herbalists, had 

 the principal garden of those days, attached 

 to his house in Holborn, and which we think 

 was in existence as late as 1659 ; for on the 

 7th of June in that year, Evelyn mentions in 

 his Diary, that he " went to see the founda- 

 tion laying for a street and buildings in 

 Hatton Garden, designed for a little towne, 

 lately an ample garden." 



Gerard mentions several private herb-gar- 

 dens in 1597, but does not notice any public 

 establishment for the encouragement of his 

 art. We therefore presume, that Oxford 

 has to boast of the earliest public physic- 



