12 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
brought out in 1478, and was followed in 1483 by an edi- 
tion of Theophrastus, with a Latin translation by Theodore 
Gaza, a Greek emigrant, which is still esteemed the best. 
The translation of Dioscorides by Matthiolus, first printed 
in 1554, supplanted that by Barbaras, and run through 
seventeen editions, 32,000 copies being said to be sold before 
the year 1561 ; but the edition of Caspar Bauhin, in 1598, 
is now esteemed the best. 
The publication of these fathers of botany was followed 
by that of a host of commentaries upon them- whose au- 
thors endeavoured to find the plants of Syria and Egypt 
in Germany, forgetful of the difference of climate; and 
thus, instead of dilucidating the author, they merely mis- 
lead their followers. Even now 7 , after the labours of llau- 
wolf, who travelled in Syria, Babylon, and Egypt, in the 
sixteenth century ; of Tournefort, who travelled also in 
Greece, Crete, &c.; and of Sir James Edward Smith; it 
does not appear, that of the 700 medical plants mentioned 
by Dioscorides, more than 400 can be said to be properly 
ascertained. 
These translations of the ancients were followed in 1484, 
at which time Richard the Third reigned here, by a fa- 
mous herbal, printed at Mentz, under the title of Herba- 
rium ; and this was followed the next year by the Ortus 
[i. e. Hortus] Sanitatis, ascribed to Cuba, a physician, 
first of Augsburgh, and afterwards of Frankfort. The 
v r ood-cuts with which they are adorned, or rather dis- 
figured, are rude, and seldom have much resemblance of 
the thing w r hich they profess to illustrate. 
Although printing was introduced into England in the 
reign of Henry the Seventh, yet no works on botany, in 
the English language, were produced in his reign, although 
hunting and angling had occupied the labours of the press. 
It was not indeed till 1516, the seventh of Henry the 
Eighth, that the Grete Herbal, with cuts, appeared. This 
book was very popular, and went through several editions. 
There is no author’s name to it, but it was probably made 
up from the French translation of the Hortus Sanitatis, 
with some alterations and additions. It mentions more 
than 400 vegetables, or their products, and of these about 
150 are English, but they are no ways distinguished from 
the exotics. The cuts are smaller than those of the Hortus, 
but equally rude and inaccurate. 
While the mere English reader w r as obliged to content 
himself with this miserable compilation, Qtho Bruns fel and 
