CHAPTER VIII 



ELIZABETHAN GARDEN LITERATURE 



" Bring hether the Pinke and purple Cullambine 



With gelliflowers, 

 Bring Coronations, and Sops in wine, 



Worne of Paramoures ; 

 Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies 

 And cowslips and Kingcups and loved Lillies, 

 The pretty Pawnee 

 And the Chevisaunce 

 Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice." 



Spenser. 



WHILE Henry VIII. was reigning in England, great im- 

 provements were being made on the Continent in the 

 science of Botany. The Botanic Garden at Padua was founded 

 in 1545, and was quickly followed by one at Pisa. But it was 

 nearly a century later before England could boast of one. The 

 rest of Europe was in advance also in Botanical literature. 

 The Aggregator Practicus di Simflicibus was probably printed by 

 Schoeffer between 1475-80. The [H]Ortus Sanitatis was printed 

 in 1485, and was the basis of all the botanical works that 

 immediately followed it. It was also the foundation of the 

 English Grete Herball. This book was printed by Peter 

 Treveris, and several editions of it appeared. The first of 

 these is said to have been printed in 1516, but the existence of 

 a copy of this issue seems somewhat doubtful, the earliest 

 edition, of which many copies are extant, being that of 1526. 

 A translation of Macer's Herbal was printed about 1530, but 

 it was William Turner who produced the first really English 

 Herbal. Herbal literature has perhaps more in common with 

 botanical researches than gardening, but by studying the early 

 Herbals much knowledge can be gained from the sidelights 



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