106 The Botanical Renaissance [ch. 



are very desirous for to dooe it : and the thyng is come to 

 so muche effecte, that their maisters doeth chasten theim 

 for it, and doe burne the Tabaco, because thei should not 

 use it." 



Twenty-seven years after the appearance of the first 

 part of Turner's herbal, a translation of Dodoens' work, 

 made by Henry Lyte, appeared in England. Lyte was 

 born about 1529, and, towards the end of the reign of 

 Henry VIII, he became a student at Oxford. He was 

 a man of means, addicted to travel, and his temperament 

 seems to have been much milder and less revolutionary than 

 that of his predecessor Turner. He did not perhaps add 

 very greatly to the knowledge of English botany, but he 

 did a valuable service in introducing Dodoens' herbal into 

 this country. His book, which was published in 1578, was 

 professedly a translation of the French version of Dodoens' 

 Cruydeboeck of 1554, which had been made by de l'Ecluse 

 in 1557. Lyte's copy of this work, with copious manuscript 

 notes, and, on the title-page, the quaint endorsement, 

 " Henry Lyte taught me to speake Englishe," is preserved 

 in the British Museum. This copy proves that Lyte was 

 no mere mechanical translator, for the work is annotated 

 and corrected with great care, references to de l'Obel and 

 Turner being introduced. 



The title of Lyte's book is as follows: 'A Niewe 

 Herball or Historie of Plantes : wherin is contayned the 

 whole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of 

 Herbes and Plantes : their divers and sundry kindes : their 

 straunge Figures, Fashions, and Shapes : their Names, 

 Natures, Operations, and Vertues : and that not onely of 

 those which are here growyng in this our Countrie of 

 Englande, but of all others also of forrayne Realmes, 

 commonly used in Physicke. First set foorth in the 

 Doutche or Almaigne tongue, by that learned D. Rembert 

 Dodoens, Physition to the Emperour : And nowe first 

 translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte 

 Esquyer.' The illustrations used in the book were the 

 same as those which had appeared in the translation by 

 de l'Ecluse, and were for the most part copies of those in 

 the octavo edition of Fuchs' herbal, with some additional 

 blocks, which had been cut specially for Dodoens. The 



