TURNER'S HERBAL 81 



should have done against Charitie to have caused the Printer 

 by that meanes to lose all his labor and cost which he hath 

 bestowed in printing hereof. Wherefore, gentle Reader, beare 

 a little with the Printer that never was much accustomed to 

 the printing of Englishe and afore thou reade over this booke 

 correct it as I haue appointed and then the profit thereof will 

 abundantly recompense thy paynes. In the meane time vse 

 this Herbale in stede of a better and give all laude and prayse 

 unto the Lorde." 



Turner was the first Englishman who studied plants scien- 

 tifically, and his herbal marks the beginning of the science of 

 botany in England. Like most writers of any value, he 

 impressed his personality upon his books, and these show him 

 to have been a man of indomitable character, caustic wit and 

 independent thought. " Vir solidae eruditionis judicii " he is 

 called by John Ray. His first botanical work was the Libellus 

 de re herbaria novus (1538), printed by John Byddell in London. 

 This little book is particularly interesting, because it is the first 

 in which localities of native British plants are given. In 1548 

 he published another small book entitled The names of herbes 

 in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duche, and Frenche wyth the 

 commone names that Herbaries and Apotecaries use, gathered 

 by William Turner. In the preface he tells us that he had 

 begun to " set furth an herbal in latyn," but that when he 

 asked the advice of physicians, " their advise was that I shoulde 

 cease from settynge out of this boke in latin till I had sene 

 those places of Englande, wherein is moste plentie of herbes, 

 that I might in my herbal declare to the greate honoure of our 

 countre what numbre of sovereine and strang herbes were in 

 England, that were not in other nations, whose counsell I have 

 folowed, deferrying to set out my herbal in latyn, tyl that I 

 have sene the west countrey, which I never sawe yet in al my 

 lyfe, which countrey of al places of England, as I heare say, is 

 moste richely replenished wyth al kindes of straunge and 

 wonderful! workes and giftes of nature as are stones, herbes, 



