EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 
61 
besides “ medlars, quinces, Warden pears, peaches, and 
pears of St. Regula/' he adds such fruits as oranges, lemons, 
pomegranates, myrrh, and spices, and other things equally 
incredible. 
Another classical writer of uncertain date was Macer. An 
author of that name was contemporary with Virgil, but the 
writer of the Herbal, which was translated into many languages, 
must have lived at some later date, as he quotes Galen. It is 
strictly a herbal treating of the medicinal uses of herbs and 
spices. The old translations are valuable, as giving the English 
equivalents of the Latin names, and Macer’s was such a 
common handbook that anyone planting a herb garden would 
try to obtain as many of the plants mentioned by him as 
could be found in England at that period. The name of the 
first translator of Macer is lost in obscurity, but there is a 
manuscript translation, dated 1373, by John Lelamour, school¬ 
master of Hertford, 1 and several other early translations exist, 
although the book was not printed until about 1530. One of 
them is curious, from the additions made by the translator 
or transcriber of some plants known to him, and not men¬ 
tioned by Macer. 2 He subjoins also some further medical 
recipes, which indicate more of the usual plants of a herb 
garden. The following example is the recipe given for curing 
the pestilence :—“ Do take and medele, pimpernoll, sauge, 
auance, seint mary gouldes, tansey, sorelF, and columbyne, 
stampe these VII erbes and drink the ioiuse of hem in ole ale 
or clene wa ter and it wole distroie the pestilence be it never 
so felle ” 
Further information about gardens is to be gained from 
other medical works. There is an English fourteenth-century 
medical poem preserved in MS. in the Royal Library, Stock¬ 
holm, which contains some graphic descriptions of flowers. 
With regard to the good qualities of rosemary, the author says : 
“ Rosmarine is bothen erbe & tre, hot and drie of kende 
hys lewys arn eu^rmore grene & neu^r more falty as techy 
bokes of fysik and ek bokys of skole of sallerne wrot to ye 
countess of hernaunde and sche sente ye copy to hyre dowter 
1 Sloane, No. 5, Sec. 3. 
2 MS. circa 1440, formerly in the Amherst Library at Didlington. 
