The Old English Herbals Part 10

"Addressing myself unto the violets called the blacke or purple violets or March violete of the Garden, which have a great prerogative above others, not only because the minde conceiveth a certaine pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling of these most odoriferous flowers, but also that very many by these violets receive ornament and comely Grace: for there be made of them garlands for the head, nosegaies and posies, which are delightful to look on and pleasant to smell, speaking nothing of the appropriate vertues; yea Gardens themselves receive by these the greatest ornament of all, chiefest beautie and most gallant grace; and the recreation of the Minde which is taken heereby, cannot bee but verie good and honest; for flowers through their beautie, varietie of colour and exquisite formes do bring to a liberall and gentlemanly minde the remembrance of honestie, comeliness and all kindes of vertues. For it would be an unseemly thing, as a certain wise man saith, for him that doth looke upon and handle faire and beautifull things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautifull places to have his minde not faire."

The bones, so to speak, of Gerard's work are, it is true, taken from Dodoens's splendid Latin herbal, but it is Gerard's own additions which have given the book its hold on our affections. He describes with such simplicity and charm the localities where various plants are to be found, and he gives so much contemporary folk lore that before we have been reading long we feel as though we were wandering about in Elizabethan England with a wholly delightful companion.

We know from Gerard's coat of arms that he was descended from a younger branch of the Gerards of Ince, a Lancas.h.i.+re family, but there are no records at the College of Arms to show his parentage. His name is frequently spelt with an e at the end, but Gerard himself and his friends invariably spelt it without. (The spelling "Gerarde" on the t.i.tle-page of the Herbal is probably an engraver's error.) John Gerard was born at Nantwich in Ches.h.i.+re in 1545, and educated at the school at Wisterson or Willaston, two miles from his native town. In the Herbal he gives us two glimpses of his boyhood. Under raspberry we find:--

"Raspis groweth not wilde that I know of.... I found it among the bushes of a causey neere unto a village called Wisterson, where I went to schoole, two miles from the Nantwich in Ches.h.i.+re."

Writing of yew[77] he tells us:--

"They say that if any doe sleepe under the shadow thereof it causeth sickness and sometimes death and that if birds do eat of the fruit thereof it causeth them to cast their feathers and many times to die. All which I dare boldly affirme is altogether untrue: for when I was young and went to schoole divers of my schoole-fellowes and likewise myselfe did eat our fils of the berries of this tree and have not only slept under the shadow thereof but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not one time but many times."

It is supposed that at an early age he studied medicine. In his Herbal he speaks of having travelled to Moscow, Denmark, Sweden and Poland, and it is possible that he went abroad as a s.h.i.+p's surgeon. This, however, is mere surmise. We know that in 1562 he was apprenticed to Alexander Mason, who evidently had a large practice, for he was twice warden of the Barber-Surgeons' Company. Gerard was admitted to the freedom of the same company in 1569.[78] Before 1577 he must have settled in London, for in his Herbal he tells us that for twenty years he had superintended the gardens belonging to Lord Burleigh in the Strand and at Theobalds in Hertfords.h.i.+re. Hentzner, in his _Itinerarium_, gives a lengthy account of the gardens at Theobalds when Gerard was superintendent.

Gerard's own house was in Holborn and, as already mentioned, his garden, where he had over a thousand different herbs, was in what is now Fetter Lane.[79] What a wonderful garden that must have been, and how full it was of "rarities," ranging from white thyme to the double-flowered peach. How often we read of various plants, "these be strangers in England yet I have them in my garden," sometimes with the triumphant addition, "where they flourish as in their natural place of growing." In 1596 Gerard published a catalogue of twenty-four pages of the plants in this garden--the first complete catalogue of the plants in any garden, public or private.[80] A second edition was published in 1599. Of Gerard's knowledge of plants the members of his own profession had a high opinion. George Baker, one of the "chief chirurgions in ordinarie" to Queen Elizabeth, wrote of him: "I protest upon my conscience that I do not thinke for the Knowledge of plants that he is inferior to any, for I did once see him tried with one of the best strangers that ever came into England and was accounted in Paris the onely man,[81] being recommended to me by that famous man M.

Amb. Parens; and he being here was desirous to go abroad with some of our herbarists, for the whiche I was the means to bring them together, and one whole day we spent therein, searching the most rarest simples: but when it came to the triall my French man did not know one to his fower." In 1598, the year after the publication of his Herbal, and again in 1607, Gerard was appointed examiner of candidates for admission to the freedom of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, but apart from this we have little definite knowledge of his life. He seems to have been a well-known figure in the later years of Elizabeth and the early years of James I., and it is probable that he held the same position in the household of Robert Earl of Salisbury, Secretary of State, as he had held in that of his father, Lord Burleigh. A few years before he died James's queen (Anne of Denmark) granted him the lease of a garden (two acres in all) east of Somerset House for four pence a year. Besides the rent he had to give "at the due and proper seasons of the yeare a convenient proportion and quant.i.tie of herbes, floures, or fruite, renewing or growing within the said garden plott or piece of grounde, by the arte and industrie of the said John Gerard, if they be lawfully required and demanded."[82] Gerard only kept this garden for a year. In 1605 he parted with his interest in it to Robert Earl of Salisbury, and it is interesting to note that in the legal doc.u.ments connected with this transaction he is described as herbarist to James I. Of his private life we know nothing beyond that he was married and that his wife helped him in his work. He died in February 1611-1612, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church, Holborn.

In 1597, as we have seen, Gerard published the Herbal which made him famous, but its history, as his critics point out, reflects little credit on the author. John Norton, the Queen's printer, had commissioned Dr. Priest, a member of the College of Physicians, to translate Dodoens's _Pemptades_ from Latin into English. Priest died before he finished his work and the unfinished translation came somehow into Gerard's hands. Gerard altered the arrangement of the herbs from that of Dodoens to that of de l'Obel in his _Adversaria_, and of Priest's translation he merely says: "Dr. Priest, one of our London College, hath (as I heard) translated the last edition of Dodoens, which meant to publish the same, but being prevented by death his translation likewise perished." There are no fewer than 1800 ill.u.s.trations in the Herbal, most of them taken from the same wood-blocks that Tabernaemonta.n.u.s (Bergzabern) used for his _Eicones_ (1590). Norton, the Queen's printer, procured the loan of these wood-blocks from Nicolas Ba.s.saeus of Frankfurt. They are good specimens, and certainly superior to the sixteen original cuts which Gerard added. It is interesting, however, to note that amongst the latter is the first published representation of the "Virginian"

potato. Gerard made so many mistakes in connection with the ill.u.s.trations that James Garret, a London apothecary (and the correspondent of Charles de l'Escluse), called Norton's attention to the matter. Norton thereupon asked de l'Obel to correct the work, and, according to de l'Obel's own account, he was obliged to make over a thousand alterations. Gerard then stopped any further emendation, on the ground that the work was sufficiently accurate, and declared further that de l'Obel had forgotten the English language. Mr. B. D.

Jackson affirms that when one compares the Herbal with the catalogue of the plants in his garden Gerard seems to have been in the right. On the other hand, de l'Obel in his _Ill.u.s.trationes_ speaks of Gerard with great bitterness and alleges that the latter pilfered from the _Adversaria_ without acknowledgment.

When one turns to the Herbal one forgets the bitterness of these old quarrels and Gerard's possible duplicity in the never-failing charm of the book itself. It is not merely a translation of Dodoens's _Pemptades_, for throughout the volume are inserted Gerard's own observations, numerous allusions to persons and places of antiquarian interest, and a good deal of contemporary folk-lore. No fewer than fifty of Gerard's own friends are mentioned, and one realises as one wanders through the pages of this vast book that he received plants from all the then accessible parts of the globe. Lord Zouche sent him rare seeds from Crete, Spain and Italy. Nicholas Lete, a London merchant, was a generous contributor to Gerard's garden and his name appears frequently. Gerard writes of him: "He is greatly in love with rare and faire flowers, for which he doth carefully send unto Syria, having a servant there at Aleppo, and in many other countries." It was Nicholas Lete who sent Gerard an "orange tawnie gilliflower" from Poland. William Marshall, a chirurgeon on board the _Hercules_, sent him rarities from the Mediterranean. The names which appear most frequently in connection with indigenous plants are those of Thomas Hesketh, a Lancas.h.i.+re gentleman, Stephen Bridwell, "a learned and diligent searcher of simples in the West of England," James Cole, a London merchant, "a lover of plants and very skilful in the knowledge of them," and James Garret, a London apothecary and a tulip enthusiast, who "every season bringeth forth new plants of sundry colours not before seen, all of which to describe particularly were to roll Sisiphus's stone or number the sands." Jean Robin, the keeper of the royal gardens in Paris, sent him many rarities. For instance, of barrenwort (_Epimedium alpinum_) he writes: "This was sent to me from the French King's herbarist Robinus dwellying in Paris at the syne of the blacke heade in the street called Du bout du Monde, in English the end of the world." In view of Sir Walter Raleigh's well-known enthusiasm for collecting rare plants, it is at least possible that he may have been a donor to Gerard's garden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF JOHN GERARD FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF THE "HERBALL" (1597)]

Even the most cursory reading of the book suggests how much we lose by the lack of the old simple belief in the efficacy of herbs to cure not only physical ills, but also those of the mind and even of the heart.

This belief was shared by the greatest civilisations of antiquity, and it is only we poor moderns who ignore the fact that "very wonderful effects may be wrought by the Vertues, which are enveloped within the compa.s.se of the Green Mantles wherewith many Plants are adorned."[83]

Doctors are cautious folk nowadays, but it is wonderful to think of a time when the world was so young that people were brave and hopeful enough to imagine that mere humans could alleviate, even cure, the sorrows of others. If ever anything so closely approaching the miraculous is attempted again one feels very sure that we shall turn, as the wise men of the oldest civilisations did, to G.o.d's most beautiful creations to accomplish the miracle. In common with the majority of the old herbalists, Gerard had a faith in herbs which was simple and unquestioning. Sweet marjoram, he tells us, is for those "who are given to over-much sighing." Again, "The smell of Basil is good for the heart ... it taketh away sorrowfulness, which commeth of melancholy and maketh a man merry and glad." "Bawme comforts the heart and driveth away all melancholy and sadnesse: it makes the heart merry and joyfull and strengtheneth the vitall spirits." "Chervil root boiled and after dressed as the cunning Cook knoweth how better than myself is very good for old people that are dull and without courage."

Of the despised dead-nettle he tells us that "the flowers baked with sugar, as roses are, maketh the vitall spirits more fresh and lively."

In connection with borage he quotes the well-known old couplet:

"I Borage Bring alwaies Courage."

"Those of our time," he continues, "do use the floures in sallads to exhilerate the mind and make the mind glad. There be also many things made of them, used everywhere for the comfort of the heart, for the driving away of sorrow and encreasing the joy of the minde.... The leaves and floures put into wine make men and women glad and merry and drive away all sadnesse, dulnesse and melancholy."

Of bugloss he says: "The physitions use the leaves, floures and rootes and put them into all kindes of medecines indifferently, which are of force and vertue to drive away sorrow and pensiveness of the minde, and to comfort and strengthen the heart."

Rosemary was held of such sovereign virtue in this respect that even the wearing of it was believed to be remedial. "If a garland thereof be put about the head, it comforteth the brain, the memorie, the inward senses and comforteth the heart and maketh it merry." Certain herbs strewed about the room were supposed to promote happiness and content. Meadowsweet, water-mint and vervain (one of the three herbs held most sacred by the Druids) were those most frequently used for this purpose.

"The savor or smell of the water-mint rejoyceth the heart of man, for which cause they use to strew it in chambers and places of recreation, pleasure and repose, where feasts and banquets are made."

"The leaves and floures of meadowsweet farre excelle all other strowing herbs for to decke up houses, to strawe in chambers, halls and banqueting houses in the summertime, for the smell thereof makes the heart merrie and joyful and delighteth the senses."

In connection with vervain he quotes Pliny's saying that "if the dining room be sprinckled with water in which the herbe hath been steeped the guests will be the merrier."

Scattered through the Herbal we find recipes for the cure of many other ailments with which modern science does not attempt to cope. For instance, under "peony" we read: "The black graines (that is the seed) to the number of fifteene taken in wine or mead is a speciall remedie for those that are troubled in the night with the disease called the Night Mare, which is as though a heavy burthen were laid upon them and they oppressed therewith, as if they were overcome with their enemies, or overprest with some great weight or burthen, and they are also good against melancholie dreames." Under Solomon's seal one lights on this: "The root stamped while it is fresh and greene and applied taketh away in one night or two at the most any bruise, black or blew spots, gotten by falls or women's wilfulnesse in stumbling upon their hasty husbands' fists or such like." Of cow parsnip he tells us: "If a phrenticke or melancholicke man's head bee anointed with oile wherein the leaves and roots have been sodden, it helpeth him very much, and such as bee troubled with the sickness called the forgetfull evill."

Would any modern have either the courage or the imagination to attempt to cure "the forgetfull evill"? In the old Saxon herbals the belief in the efficacy of herbs used as amulets is a marked feature, and even in Gerard's Herbal much of this old belief survives. "A garland of pennyroyal," he tells us, "made and worne about the head is of a great force against the swimming in the head, the paines and giddiness thereof." The root of spatling poppy "being pound with the leaves and floures cureth the stinging of scorpions and such like venemous beasts: insomuch that whoso doth hold the same in his hand can receive no damage or hurt by any venemous beast." Of shrubby trefoil we learn that "if a man hold it in his hand he cannot be hurt with the biting of any venemous beast." Of rue he says: "If a man be anointed with the juice of rue, the poison of wolf's bane, mushrooms or todestooles, the biting of serpents, stinging of scorpions, spiders, bees, hornets and wasps will not hurt him." In the older herbals numerous herbs are mentioned as being of special virtue when used as amulets to protect the wayfaring man from weariness, but Gerard mentions only two--mugwort and _Agnus castus_. He quotes the authority of Pliny for the belief that "the traveller or wayfaring man that hath mugwort tied about him feeleth no wearisomeness at all and he who hath it about him can be hurt by no poysonous medecines, nor by any wilde beaste, neither yet by the Sun itselfe." Of _Agnus castus_ he writes: "It is reported that if such as journey or travell do carry with them a branch or rod of agnus castus in their hand, it will keep them from weariness." The herbs most in repute as amulets against misfortune generally were angelica (of sovereign virtue against witchcraft and enchantments) and figwort, which was "hanged about the necke" to keep the wearer in health. At times one feels that Gerard rather doubted the efficacy of these "physick charms," and he gives us a nave description of his friends' efforts to cure him of an ague by their means.

"Having a most grievous ague," he writes, "and of long continuance, notwithstanding Physick charmes, the little wormes found in the heads of Teazle hanged about my necke, spiders put in a walnut sh.e.l.l, and divers such foolish toies, that I was constrained to take by fantasticke peoples procurement, notwithstanding I say my helpe came from G.o.d himselfe, for these medicines and all other such things did me no good at all."

Under "gourd" Gerard gives a use of this herb which, though popular, is not to be found in any other English herbal. "A long gourd," he says, "or else a cuc.u.mber being laid in the cradle or bed by the young infant while it is asleep and sicke of an ague, it shall very quickly be made whole." The cure was presumably effected by the cooling properties of the fruit. In another place he recommends the use of branches of willow for a similar purpose. "The greene boughes of willows with the leaves may very well be brought into chambers and set about the beds of those that be sick of fevers, for they do mightily coole the heate of the aire, which thing is wonderfull refres.h.i.+ng to the sicke Patient."

There is so much contemporary folk lore embodied in Gerard that it is disappointing to find that when writing of mugwort, a herb which has been endowed from time immemorial with wonderful powers, he declines to give the old superst.i.tions "tending to witchcraft and sorcerie and the great dishonour of G.o.d; wherefore do I purpose to omit them as things unwoorthie of my recording or your receiving." He also pours scorn on the mandrake legend. "There have been," he says, "many ridiculous tales brought up of this plant, whether of old wives or runnegate surgeons, or phisick mongers I know not, all whiche dreames and old wives tales you shall from hencefoorth cast out of your bookes of memorie." The old legend of the barnacle geese, however, he gives fully. It is both too long and too well known to quote, but it is interesting to remember that this myth is at least as old as the twelfth century. According to one version, certain trees growing near the sea produced fruit like apples, each containing the embryo of a goose, which, when the fruit was ripe, fell into the water and flew away. It is, however, more commonly met with in the form that the geese emanated from a fungus growing on rotting timber floating at sea. This is Gerard's version. One of the earliest mentions of this myth is to be found in Giraldus Cambrensis (_Topographia Hiberniae_, 1187), a zealous reformer of Church abuses. In his protest against eating these barnacle geese during Lent he writes thus:--

"There are here many birds which are called Bernacae which nature produces in a manner contrary to nature and very wonderful. They are like marsh geese but smaller. They are produced from fir-timber tossed about at sea and are at first like geese upon it. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood and are enclosed in sh.e.l.ls that they may grow the more freely.

Having thus in course of time been clothed with a strong covering of feathers they either fall into the water or seek their liberty in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from the moisture of the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds hanging from one piece of timber on the sh.o.r.e enclosed in sh.e.l.ls and already formed ... in no corner of the world have they been known to build a nest. Hence the bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in the habit of partaking of these birds on fast days without scruple.

But in doing so they are led into sin. For if anyone were to eat the leg of our first parent, although he (Adam) was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating flesh."

Jews in the Middle Ages were divided as to whether these barnacle geese should be killed as flesh or as fish. Pope Innocent III. took the view that they were flesh, for at the Lateran Council in 1215 he prohibited the eating of them during Lent. In 1277 Rabbi Izaak of Corbeil forbade them altogether to Jews, on the ground that they were neither fish nor flesh. Both Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon derided the myth, but in general it seems to have been accepted with unquestioning faith. Sebastian Munster, in his _Cosmographia Universalis_ (1572), tells us that Pope Pius II. when on a visit to Scotland was most anxious to see these geese, but was told that they were to be found only in the Orkney Islands. Sebastian believed in them himself, for he wrote of them:--

"In Scotland there are trees which produce fruit conglomerated of leaves, and this fruit when in due time it falls into the water beneath it is endowed with new life and is converted into a living bird which they call the tree-goose.... Several old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention the tree and it must not be regarded as fict.i.tious as some new writers suppose."[84]

Even Hector Boece, in his _Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland_ (1536), took the myth seriously, but in his opinion "the nature of the seis is mair relevant caus of their procreation than ony uther thyng." William Turner accepted the myth and gives as his evidence what had been told him by an eye-witness, "a theologian by profession and an Irishman by birth, Octavian by name," who promised him that he would take care that some growing chicks should be sent to him! In later times we find that Gaspar Schott (_Physica Curiosa Sive Mirabilia Naturae et Artis_, 1662, lib. ix. cap. xxii. p. 960) quotes a vast number of authorities on the subject and then demonstrates the absurdity of the myth. Yet in 1677 Sir Robert Moray read before the Royal Society "A Relation concerning Barnacles," and this was published in the _Philosophical Transactions_, January-February 1677-8. Among ill.u.s.trations of the barnacle geese, that in de l'Obel's _Stirpium Historia_ (1571) depicts the tree without the birds. Gerard shows the tree with the birds; in Aldrovandus leaves have been added to the tree and there is also an ill.u.s.tration showing the development of the barnacles into geese.

As in all herbals the element of the unexpected is not lacking in Gerard. Who would think of finding under the eminently dull heading "fir trees" the following gem of folk lore? "I have seen these trees growing in Ches.h.i.+re and Staffords.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re, where they grew in great plenty as is reported before Noah's flood, but then being overturned and overwhelmed have lien since in the mosse and waterie moorish grounds very fresh and sound untill this day; and so full of a resinous substance, that they burne like a Torch or Linke and the inhabitants of those countries do call it Fir-wood and Fire-wood unto this day: out of the tree issueth the rosin called Thus, in English Frankincense." In these days of exaggerated phraseology one is the more appreciative of that word "overturned." Gerard mentions the famous white Thorn at Glas...o...b..ry, but he is very cautious in his account of it. "The white thorn at Glas...o...b..ry ... which bringeth forth his floures about Christmas by the report of divers of good credit, who have seen the same; but myselfe have not seen it and therefore leave it to be better examined."

Another attractive feature of this Herbal is the preservation in its pages of many old English names of plants. One species of cudweed was called "Live-for-ever." "When the flower hath long flourished and is waxen old, then comes there in the middest of the floure a certain brown yellow thrumme, such as is in the middest of the daisie, which floure being gathered when it is young may be kept in such manner (I meane in such freshnesse and well-liking) by the s.p.a.ce of a whole year after in your chest or elsewhere; wherefore our English women have called it 'Live-long,' or 'Live-for-ever,' which name doth aptly answer his effects." Another variety of cudweed was called "Herbe impious" or "wicked cudweed," a variety "like unto the small cudweed, but much larger and for the most part those floures which appeare first are the lowest and basest and they are overtopt by other floures, which come on younger branches, and grow higher as children seeking to overgrow or overtop their parents (as many wicked children do), for which cause it hath been called 'Herbe impious.'" Of the herb commonly known as bird's-eye he tells us: "In the middle of every small floure appeareth a little yellow spot, resembling the eye of a bird, which hath moved the people of the north parts (where it aboundeth) to call it Birds eyne." "The fruitful or much-bearing marigold," he writes, "is likewise called Jackanapes-on-horsebacke: it hath leaves, stalkes and roots like the common sort of marigold, differing in the shape of his floures; for this plant doth bring forth at the top of the stalke one floure like the other marigolds, from which start forth sundry other smal floures, yellow likewise and of the same fas.h.i.+on as the first, which if I be not deceived commeth to pa.s.s per accidens, or by chance, as Nature often times liketh to play with other floures; or as children are borne with two thumbes on one hand or such like, which living to be men do get children like unto others: even so is the seed of this marigold, which if it be sowen it brings forth not one floure in a thousand like the plant from whence it was taken." Goat's-beard still retains its old name of 'go-to-bed-at-noon,' "for it shutteth itselfe at twelve of the clocke, and sheweth not his face open untill the next dayes Sun doth make it flower anew, whereupon it was called go-to-bed-at-noone: when these floures be come to their full maturitie and ripenesse they grow into a downy Blow-ball like those of dandelion, which is carried away with the winde." Of the wild scabious (still called devil's-bit by country folk) he tells us: "It is called Devil's bit of the root (as it seemeth) that is bitten off. Old fantasticke charmers report that the Devil did bite it for envie because it is an herbe that hath so many good vertues and is so beneficent to mankind." Gerard's, again, is the only herbal in which we find one of the old names for vervain: "Of some it is called pigeons gra.s.se because Pigeons are delighted to be amongst it as also to eat thereof." Golden moth-wort, he tells us, is called G.o.d's flower "because the images and carved G.o.ds were wont to wear garlands thereof: for which purpose Ptolomy King of Egypt did most diligently observe them as Pliny writeth. The floures ...

glittering like gold, in forme resembling the scaly floures of tansy or the middle b.u.t.ton of the floures of camomil, which, being gathered before they be ripe or withered, remaine beautiful long after, as myself did see in the hands of Mr. Wade, one of the Clerks of her Majesties Counsell, which were sent him among other things from Padua in Italy." The variety of daisy which children now call "Hen and Chickens" was known as the "childing daisy" in Gerard's time.

"Furthermore, there is another pretty double daisy which differs from the first described only in the floure which at the sides thereof puts forth many foot-stalkes carrying also little double floures, being commonly of a red colour; so that each stalke carries as it were an old one and the brood thereof: whence they have fitly termed it the childing Daisie." Of silverweed he tells us: "the later herbarists doe call it argentine of the silver drops that are to be seen in the distilled water thereof, when it is put into a gla.s.se, which you shall easily see rowling and tumbling up and downe in the bottome."

Delphinium, we learn, derives its name from dolphin, "for the floures especially before they be perfected have a certain shew and likeness of those Dolphines which old pictures and armes of certain antient families have expressed with a crooked and bending figure or shape, by which signe also the heavenly Dolphin is set forth." Rest-harrow, he says, is so called "because it maketh the Oxen whilest they be in plowing to rest or stand still." One of the most attractive names which he accounts for is cloudberry. "Cloudberrie groweth naturally upon the tops of two high mountaines (among the mossie places), one in Yorks.h.i.+re, called Ingleborough, the other in Lancas.h.i.+re called Pendle, two of the highest mountains in all England, where the clouds are lower than the tops of the same all winter long, whereupon the country people have called them cloudberries; found there by a curious gentleman in the knowledge of plants, called Mr. Hesketh, often remembered."

For those who care to seek it Gerard supplies an unequalled picture of the wild-flower life in London in Elizabethan days. It is pleasant to think of the little wild bugloss growing "in the drie ditch bankes about Piccadilla" (Piccadilly), of mullein "in the highwaies about Highgate"; of clary "in the fields of Holborne neere unto Grays Inn"; of lilies of the valley, the rare white-flowered betony, devil's-bit, saw-wort, whortleberries, dwarf willows and numerous other wild plants on Hampstead Heath; of the yellow-flowered figwort "in the moist medowes as you go from London to Hornsey"; of the yellow pimpernel "growing in abundance between Highgate and Hampstead"; of sagittaria "in the Tower ditch at London"; of white saxifrage "in the great field by Islington called the Mantles and in Saint George's fields behinde Southwarke"; of the vervain mallow "on the ditch sides on the left hand of the place of execution by London called Tyburn and in the bushes as you go to Hackney"; of marsh-mallows "very plentifully in the marshes by Tilbury Docks"; of the great wild burnet "upon the side of a causey, which crosseth a field whereof the one part is earable ground and the other part medow, lying between Paddington and Lysson Green neere unto London upon the highway"; of hemlock dropwort "betweene the plowed lands in the moist and wet furrowes of a field belonging to Battersey by London, and amongst the osiers against York House a little above the Horse-ferry against Lambeth"; of the small earth-nut "in a field adjoyning to Highgate on the right side of the middle of the village and likewise in the next field and by the way that leadeth to Paddington by London"; of chickweed spurry "in the sandy grounds in Tothill fields nigh Westminster"; of the pimpernel rose "in a pasture as you goe from a village hard by London called Knightsbridge unto Fulham, a village thereby"; of dwarf elder "in untoiled places plentifully in the lane at Kilburne Abbey by London"; of silver cinquefoil "upon brick and stone walls about London, especially upon the bricke wall in Liver Lane"; of water-ivy, "which is very rare to find, nevertheless I found it once in a ditch by Bermondsey house near to London and never elsewhere."

The glimpses he gives us of London gardens are few and one longs for more. It is remarkable how few vegetables, or "pot-herbs" as they called them, were grown in Elizabethan times. Vegetables which figured in the old Roman menus were considered luxuries in this country even in the days of the later Stuarts. The wild carrot is an indigenous plant in our islands, but of the cultivated carrot we were ignorant till the Flemish immigrants introduced it in the early seventeenth century. Parsnips, turnips and spinach were also rarities. With the exception of the wild cabbage, the whole bra.s.sica tribe were unknown to us till the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes were both introduced into this country in Tudor days. Gerard was one of the first to grow potatoes, and he proudly tells us, "I have received hereof from Virginia roots which grow and prosper in my garden as in their own native countrie." He was, in fact, the originator of the popular but incorrect epithet "Virginia potato." The potato was not a native of Virginia, nor was it cultivated there in Tudor times. The Spaniards brought it from Quito in 1580, and Gerard had it in his garden as early as 1596. The potato to which Shakespeare refers (_Troilus and Cressida_, V. ii. 534; _Merry Wives of Windsor_, V. v. 20, 21) is, of course, the sweet potato, which had been introduced into Europe nearly eighty years earlier. Gerard speaks of this sweet potato as "the common potato,"

which is somewhat confusing to the modern reader.

There is a delightful glimpse of a well-known London garden, that of "Master Tuggie," who lived in Westminster and whose hobby was gilliflowers. It is the more interesting to find this pa.s.sage in Gerard, for, as all lovers of Parkinson's _Paradisus_ will remember, some of the varieties of gilliflower were called after their enthusiastic grower. Indeed, who can forget their enchanting names--"Master Tuggie's Princesse" and "Master Tuggie his Rose gillowflower"? Of gilliflowers, which vied with roses in pride of place in Elizabethan gardens, Gerard writes thus:--

"Now I (holding it a thing not so fit for me to insist upon these accidental differences of plants having specifique differences enough to treat of) refer such as are addicted to these commendable and harmless delights to survey the late and oft-mentioned Worke of my friend, Mr. John Parkinson, who hath accurately and plentifully treated of these varieties. If they require further satisfaction, let them at the time of the yeare repaire to the garden of Mistress Tuggie (the wife of my late deceased friend, Mr.

Ralph Tuggie) in Westminster, which in the excellencie and varietie of these delights exceedeth all that I have seene, as also, he himself, whilst he lived exceeded most, if not all, of his time, in his care, industry and skill, in raising, increasing and preserving of these plants."

Gerard's descriptions of the most loved English garden flowers are perhaps too well known to quote, and therefore I give only the following: "The Plant of Roses, though it be a shrub full of p.r.i.c.kes, yet it hath beene more fit and convenient to have placed it with the most glorious flowers of the world than to inserte the same here among base and thornie shrubs; for the rose doth deserve the chiefest and most princ.i.p.all place among all flowers whatsoever being not only esteemed in his beautie, vertue and his fragrance and odoriferous smell, but also because it is the honor and ornament of our English Scepter, as by the coniunction appeereth in the uniting of those two most royal houses of Lancaster and Yorke. Which pleasant flowers deserve the chiefest place in crowns and garlands. The double white sort doth growe wilde in many hedges of Lancas.h.i.+re in great abundance, even as briers do with us in these southerly parts, especially in a place of the countrey called Leyland, and in the place called Roughfoorde not far from Latham. The distilled water of roses is good for the strengthening of the hart and refres.h.i.+ng of the spirits and likewise in all things that require a gentle cooling. The same being put in iunketting dishes, cakes, sawces and many other pleasant things, giveth a fine and delectable taste. It bringeth sleepe which also the fresh roses themselves promote through their sweete and pleasant smell."

Like most gardeners Gerard was an optimist. It is wonderful enough to think of the rare, white thyme growing in the heart of London, but think of the courage of trying to raise dates in the open! "of the which," Gerard tells us (in no wise downcast by his numerous failures), "I have planted many times in my garden and have growne to the height of three foot, but the frost hath nipped them in such sort that soone after they perished, notwithstanding my industrie by covering them, or what else I could do for their succour." And does it not make one feel as eager as Gerard himself when one finds, under water-mallows, that, though exotic plants, "at the impression hereof I have sowen some seeds of them in my garden, expecting the successe."

The mere catalogue of the plants in Gerard's own wonderful garden fills a small book, and scattered through the Herbal we find numerous references to it, unfortunately too lengthy to quote here.

One likes to think that Shakespeare must have seen this garden, for we know that at least for a time he lived in the vicinity. In those days two such prominent men could scarcely have failed to know one another.[85] As Canon Ellacombe has pointed out, Shakespeare's writings are full of the old English herb lore. In this use of plant lore, which was traditional rather than literary, he is curiously distinct from his contemporaries. Outside the herbals there is more old English herb lore to be found in Shakespeare than in any other writer. It is, in fact, incredible that the man whose own works are so redolent of the fields and hedgerows of his native Warwicks.h.i.+re, did not visit the garden of the most famous herbarist of his day. Perhaps it was to Shakespeare that Gerard first told the sad tale of the loss of his precious scammony of Syria, a tale which no one with a gardener's heart can read without a pang of sympathy, even after the lapse of three centuries. One of his numerous correspondents had sent him the seed of this rare plant, "of which seed," he says:--

"I received two plants that prospered exceeding well; the one whereof I bestowed upon a learned apothecary of Colchester, which continueth to this day bearing both floures and ripe seed. But an ignorant weeder of my garden plucked mine up and cast it away in my absence instead of a weed, by which mischance I am not able to write hereof so absolutely as I determined. It floured in my garden about S.

James' tide as I remember, for when I went to Bristow Faire I left it in floure; but at my returne it was destroyed as is aforesaid."

FOOTNOTES:

[76] Americans who have the proud distinction of being "of Royal Indian descent" may be interested to know that a copy of Gerard's Herbal in Oxford has been identified as having belonged to Dorothy Rolfe, the mother-in-law of the Princess Pocahontas.

[77] Yew berries are an ingredient in at least one prescription in a Saxon herbal (_Leech Book of Bald_, I. 63).

[78] Gerard endeavoured to induce the Barber-Surgeons' Company to establish a garden for the cultivation and study of medicinal plants, but nothing came of the scheme.

[79] Formerly it was generally supposed that Gerard's garden was on the northern side of Holborn, but this is unlikely, for during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign the part which is now known as Ely Place and Hatton Garden was an estate of forty acres belonging to the Bishopric of Ely. Holborn was almost a village then, and Gerard tells us in his _Herball_ that in Gray's Inn Lane he gathered mallow, shepherd's purse, sweet woodruff, bugle and Paul's betony, and in the meadows near red-flowered clary, white saxifrage, the sad-coloured rocket, yarrow, lesser hawkweed and the curious strawberry-headed trefoil. Wallflower and golden stonecrop grew on the houses.