LITERATURE OF GARDENING. 541 



second part of this book was published in 1577, and 

 numerous editions succeeded at brief intervals. 



Henry Lyte published a translation of " Dodoens' 

 Herbal" in 1578, an interesting book, because although 

 it does not embrace cultivation, the enumeration of plants 

 and trees, their description and nature, is very full and 

 valuable. Dodoens seems to have borrowed much from 

 Dioscorides, a Greek herbalist of the first century, as our 

 own Gerard later on borrowed much from Dodoens. 



In 1578 appeared also a translation of Heresbach by 

 Barnaby Googe, under the title of " Foure Bookes of 

 Husbandrie, containing the whole art and trade of Hus- 

 bandrie, Gardening, Graffeing, and Planting, &c," of which 

 Johnson in his History of Gardening says : " This is a book 

 replete with just observations, and though short and im- 

 perfect, still superior to any work that had preceded it." 



Sir Hugh Platt published " The Jewel House of Art 

 and Nature" in 1594, and the " Paradise of Flora" in 1600, 

 subsequent editions of the latter having the title of " The 

 Garden of Eden." I have both these books, but not the 

 first editions of them ; the former has little in connexion 

 with gardening, although the author claims to have pre- 

 sented the Lord Mayor with fresh green artichokes on 

 Twelfth-day, and with a score of fresh oranges which he 

 had kept from the previous Whitsuntide. " The Garden 

 of Eden " is really a book on gardening. The author says 

 in his epistle to the reader that "his collections are not 

 written at adventure or by an imaginary conceit in a 

 scholar's private study, but wrung out of the earth by the 

 painful hand of experience." The publisher tells us there 

 was " not a gardener in England of any note but made use 

 of his discoveries and confirmed his inventions by their 

 own experience." He speaks of trees and plants as "God's 

 Vegetable creatures." The style is clear and elegant, con- 

 veying much sound instruction, but the author was living 

 in the dawn of gardening and did not discern all things 

 so clearly as he thought. He was in friendly communica- 



