MANUSCRIPT AND PRINTED HERBALS 55 



The last verse of the poem is as follows : 



" Nowe gloryous god that regnest one in thre 



And thre in one graunte vertu myght and grace 

 Unto the prynter of this werke that he 

 May be rewarded in thy heuenly place 

 And whan the worlde shall come before thy face 

 There to receue accordyng to desert 

 Of grace and mercy make hym then expert." 



The treatise on herbs formed, as we have seen, only a part 

 of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum, and, to speak strictly, 

 the first printed English herbal was the small quarto volume 

 published by Richard Banckes in 1525. It was the beginning 

 of a series of small books x chiefly in black letter. All of them, 

 though issued from different presses, have nearly the same title, 

 and they vary only slightly from the original Banckes' 's Herbal. 

 The title of this Herbal is 



" Here begynneth a new mater / the whiche sheweth and | 

 treateth of ye vertues & proprytes of her- | bes / the whiche is 

 called | an Herball . | C. Cum gratia & priuilegio | a rege indulto j 



(Colophon) CJmprynted by me Rycharde Banckes /dwellynge 

 in | Lodo / a lytel fro ye Stockes in ye Pultry / ye XXV day 

 of | Marche. The yere of our Lorde MCCCCC. & XXV." 



We do not know who the author of this book was, and it 

 has been suggested that it is based on some mediaeval English 

 manuscript now lost. Certainly when one reads this anonymous 

 work known as Banckes' s Herbal one is struck not only by its 

 superiority to the later and more famous Crete Herball, but 

 also by its greater charm. It gives the impression of being a 

 compilation from various sources, the author having made his 

 own selection from what pleased him most in the older English 

 manuscript herbals. It seems to have been a labour of love, 

 whereas the Grete Herball is merely a translation. It is almost 

 certain that the writer made use of one of the numerous 



1 For dates, full titles, etc., of all the editions of Banckes' s Herbal see 

 Bibliography of English Herbals. 



