GERARD'S HERBAL 103 



Somerset House for four pence a year. Besides the rent he had 

 to give ** at the due and proper seasons of the yeare a convenient 

 proportion and quantitie of herbes, floures, or fruite, renewing 

 or growing within the said garden plott or piece of grounde, by 

 the arte and industrie of the said John Gerard, if they be lawfully 

 required and demanded." ^ Gerard only kept this garden for 

 a year. In 1605 he parted with his interest in it to Robert 

 Earl of Sahsbury, and it is interesting to note that in the legal 

 documents connected with this transaction he is described as 

 herbarist to James I. Of his private life we know nothing beyond 

 that he was married and that his wife helped him in his work. 

 He died in February 1611-1612, and was buried in St. Andrew's 

 Church, Holborn. 



In 1597, as we have seen, Gerard published the Herbal which 

 made him famous, but its history, as his critics point out, reflects 

 little credit on the author. John Norton, the Queen's printer, 

 had commissioned Dr. Priest, a member of the College of 

 Physicians, to translate Dodoens's Pemptades from Latin into 

 English. Priest died before he finished his work and the 

 unfinished translation came somehow into Gerard's hands. 

 Gerard altered the arrangement of the herbs from that of 

 Dodoens to that of de I'Obel in his Adversaria, and of Priest's 

 translation he merely says : "Dr. Priest, one of our London 

 College, hath (as I heard) translated the last edition of Dodoens, 

 which meant to publish the same, but being prevented by death 

 his translation likewise perished." There are no fewer than 

 1800 illustrations in the Herbal, most of them taken from the 

 same wood-blocks that Tabernsemontanus (Bergzabern) used 

 for his Eicones (1590). Norton, the Queen's printer, procured 

 the loan of these wood-blocks from Nicolas Bassseus of Frankfurt. 

 They are good specimens, and certainly superior to the sixteen 

 original cuts which Gerard added. It is interesting, however, 

 to note that amongst the latter is the first published representa- 

 tion of the " Virginian " potato. Gerard made so many mistakes 

 1 MSS. Record Office, James I. (Domestic), Vol. IX. fol. 113. 



