INTRODUCTION. Xxvii 



rate form ; and as they were a numerous 

 body, they made a vocabulary of their 

 own. We find it an estabhshed thing in the 

 sixteenth century that there are two voca- 

 bularies, one of the learned and another 

 of the herbalist. The botanist felt the 

 distance between himself and the herbalist. 

 Fuchs talks of the * vulgus herbariorum.' 

 This division went deeper than names. 

 It was a severance of the popular from the 

 scientific; and it went on widening as 

 Botany grew stronger and more con- 

 scious of its vocation, while the Herbal 

 sank ever lower in cant and charlatanry. 

 These qualities early manifested themselves 

 in connexion with Herbals. The me- 

 diaeval title of Apuleius is in point ; 

 Herharium Apuleii Platonici quod ac- 

 cepit ah Escolapio et Chirone Centauro 

 magistro Achillis. Even in old Gerarde, 

 favourite and almost classic as he is, there 

 is a spice of the mountebank. It is not 

 that his book is tinged with popular error ; 

 all the books of the time are that : but his 

 book leans to the side of superstition. Its 

 motto might be — 



2 



