TURNER 77 



before any of them achieved eminence ; John Eay, in 

 the latter half of the seventeenth century, was the first 

 who could be compared with the best naturalists of 

 Flanders, Germany and Switzerland. 



Turner was a fellow of a Cambridge college, who had, 

 under the influence of Eidley and Latimer, become a 

 stout Protestant. While still at the university he 

 studied botany, and put forth his Idbellus, which gives 

 the Greek, Latin and English names of all the plants 

 which he knew. " As yet," he explains, " ther was no 

 Englishe herbal but one, al full of unlearned cacographies 

 and falselye naming of herbes" (the Great Herbal). 

 He was soon afterwards imprisoned for preaching 

 without a licence. When set free he went abroad, 

 studied botany and medicine under Luke Ghini at 

 Bologna, visited Gesner at Zurich, and botanised along 

 the Rhine. On the accession of our Edward VI. he 

 returned to England, and found employment as chap- 

 lain, physician and botanist. He was made dean of 

 Wells in 1550, but was forced to flee again to the con- 

 tinent on Mary's accession. At her death he recovered 

 his deanery, but fell into trouble again in 1564, being 

 suspended for nonconformity in the use of vestments. 

 He died in London in 1568. 



Turner's literary activity was chiefly exhibited in 

 religious controversy. His Herball, though now inter- 

 esting to the student of the English language, did 

 nothing for scientific botany. The arrangement is 

 alphabetical, under the Latin or Greek names, much 

 space is devoted to the virtues and properties of the 

 plants, and more than three-quarters of the figures are 

 borrowed from Fuchs. Turner's best work in natural 

 history was his history of birds. The primary object of 

 this book was the determination of the birds named by 



