LATER SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HERBALS 165 



as an Egg is full of meat. This not being pleasing and less 

 profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers Dr. Reason 

 and Dr. Experience and took a voyage to visit my Mother Nature, 

 by whose advice together with the help of Dr. Diligence I at 

 last obtained my desire and, being warned by Mr. Honesty (a 

 stranger in our days) to publish it to the world, I have done it." 

 It is impossible to read any part of this absurd book without 

 a vision arising of the old rogue standing at the street corner 

 and not only collecting but holding an interested crowd of the 

 common folk by the sort of arguments which they not only 

 understand but appreciate. In his preface he warns his readers 

 against the false copies of his book " that are printed of that 

 letter the small Bibles are printed with . . . there being twenty 

 or thirty gross errors in every sheet." He is withering in his 

 criticism of those who quote old authors as authorities. " They 

 say Reason makes a man differ from a beast ; if that be true, 

 pray what are they that instead of Reason for their judgment 

 quote old authors?" In his preface, as throughout his book, 

 he affirms his belief in the connection between herbs and stars. 

 Diseases, he asserts, vary according to the motions of the stars, 

 " and he that would know the reason for the operation of the 

 herbs must look up as high as the stars. It is essential to find 

 out what planet has caused the disease and then by what planet 

 the afflicted part of the body is governed. In the treatment 

 of the disease the influence of the planet must be opposed by 

 herbs under the influence of another planet, or in some cases by 

 sympathy, that is each planet curing its own disease." Else- 

 where he directs that plants must always be picked according 

 to the planet that is in the ascendant. Culpeper asserts that 

 herbs should be dried in the sun,^ his ingenious reasoning being 



1 John Archer (one of the Physicians in Ordinary to Charles II.) also 

 asserts in his Compendious Herbal (1673) that " the Sun doth not draw away 

 the Vertues of Herbs, but adds to them." Archer gives full astrological 

 directions for the gathering of herbs : — 



" I have mentioned in the ensuing Treatise of Herbs the Planet that Rules 

 every Herb for this end, that you may the better understand their Nature 



