JOHN PARKINSON 153 



There are letters extolling the Herbal from three Oxford 

 doctors, two of whom refer to the then newly-made physic 

 garden on the Cherwell. One writes thus : " Oxford and Eng- 

 land are happy in the foundation of a spacious illustrious 

 physicke garden, compleately beautifully walled and gated, 

 now in levelling and planting with the charges and expences of 

 thousands by the many wayes Honourable Earle of Danby, 

 the furnishing and enriching whereof and of many a glorious 

 Tempe, with all usefull and delightfull plants will be the better 

 expedited by your painefull happy satisfying Worke. 



"Tho. Clayton, His Majesty's prof, of Physicke, Oxon." 



One who signs himself " Your affectionate friend John Bain- 

 bridge Doctor of Physique, and Professor of Astronomy, Oxon " 

 writes thus : " I am a stranger to your selfe but not to your 

 learned and elaborate volumnes. I have with delight and 

 admiration surveyed your Theatrum Botanicum, a stately 

 Fabrique, collected and composed with excessive paines. . . . 

 It is a curious pourtrait and description of th' Earths flowred 

 mantle, the Herbarist's Oracle, a rich Magazin of soveraigne 

 Medicines, physicall experiments and other rarities." 



Parkinson divides his plants into " Classes or Tribes " : 



1. Sweete smelling Plants. 



2. Purging Plants. 



3. Venemous Sleepy and Hurtfull plants and their Counter 



poysons. 



4. Saxifrages. 



5. Vulnerary or Wound Herbs. 



6. Cooling and Succory like Herbs. 



7. Hot and sharpe biting Plants. 



8. Umbelliferous Plants. 



9. Thistles and Thorny Plants. 



10. Fearnes and Capillary Herbes. 



11. Pulses. 



12. Comes. 



