THE OLD ENGLISH IIEEBALS 
121 
concludes the chapter, and leads on to a consideration of Turner’s 
Herbal, followed by a chapter on Gerard. Here we are on more 
familiar ground; but we take the opportunity of again commending 
M iss Rohde’s skill in presenting an interesting summary of the 
lives and works of both authors. The note on the woodcuts of 
Turner (to which the reduced reproductions hardly do justice) and 
other sixteenth century herbals, with its tribute to Fuchs, might 
have been amplified by a reference to Dr. Arber’s volume on Herbals, 
which, curiously enough, Miss Rohde nowhere mentions; the history 
of the old cuts through their various reproductions is given by 
Stokes in his (the second) edition of Withering’s Arrangement. The 
extracts from both authors are, as always, admirably chosen. We 
venture to point out that Turner does not “ contend that our English 
h}^ssop is the same plant as that mentioned in the Bible ” ; it seems 
a little rash to say that “ he also describes a species which does not 
now exist” in view of the reference to “another plant which seems 
to have disappeared ” ; this latter the excellent description cited by 
Miss Ilohde unmistakably identifies with Crarnbe maritima. The 
chapter ends with notes on Dodoens and Lyte ; one could have wished 
that space would have allowed Miss Rohde to treat the latter at 
greater length. She says that “all the commendatory verses at the 
beginning of Byte’s herbal are in Latin,” save those by William 
Clowes ; but on her preceding page she quotes lines from an English 
poem by “ T. 1ST.” ( = Thomas Newton) which also appears there. It 
may be noted that the curious misprint of “ Dodeon ” for Dodoen, 
which she notes as occurring in the preface to Hams Little Dodeon 
(sic) also appears twice on the titlepage. 
The chapters on Gerard’s Herbal and, later, that on John Parkin¬ 
son—“ the last of the Great English Herbalists ”—are on the same 
lines as that on Turner and are equally well done. To the two 
passages cited from the Herbal as affording glimpses of Gerard’s 
boyhood may be added a third (p. 203), where he tells us that 
Cardamine pratensis was called “ La die Smockes ” “at the Nampt- 
wich in Cheshire where I had my beginning.” In her note on the 
illustrations to the Herbal , Miss Rohde points out that they include 
“ the first published representation of the ‘ Virginian ’ potato.” 
With regard to this figure, attention may be called to a paper by 
W. Stephen Mitchell, published in the Antiquary for April 1886, in 
which its source is discussed at length and its continental origin is 
suggested. Mitchell sa} r s : “ Platninus [Platinus] the publisher was 
a friend of both Clusius and L’Obel, and L’Obel was for a time at 
least helping Gerard with his book: there would be no difficulty 
about obtaining a drawing were it needed.” In this connexion it 
may be interesting to add that, when visiting the Musee Plantin at 
Antwerp about thirty } 7 ears ago, we saw among the exhibits a coloured 
drawing which seems to have been the origin of the figure given 
by Gerard: Mitchell mentions that “ in 1590 Bauhin had seen 
‘ iconem suis coloribus delineatus.’ ” There seems little doubt that the 
cut was made expressly for the Herbal, and it is so good that one 
wonders, with Mitchell, “ why it was superseded by another [from 
Clusius] in the Johnson edition : was the block lost? Just possibly 
