GERARD'S HERBAL
"If odours may worke satisfaction, they are so soveraigne in
plants and so comfortable that no confection of the
apothecaries can equall their excellent vertue."--_Gerard's
Herbal_, 1597.
When one looks at the dingy, if picturesque, thoroughfare of Fetter
Lane it is difficult to realise that it was once the site of Gerard's
garden, and it is pleasant to remember that the city of London in
those far-off days was as noted for the beauty of its gardens as for
its stately houses. The owner of this particular garden in Fetter Lane
is the most famous of all the English herbalists. His Herbal,[76]
which was published in 1597, gripped the imagination of the English
garden-loving world, and now, after the lapse of three hundred years,
it still retains its hold on us. There are English-speaking people the
world over who may know nothing of any other, but at least by name
they know Gerard's Herbal. In spite of the condemnation he has justly
earned, not only in modern times, but from the critics of his own day,
for having used Dr. Priest's translation of Dodoens's _Pemptades_
without acknowledgment, no one can wander in the mazes of Gerard's
monumental book without succumbing to its fascination. One reads his
critics with the respect due to their superior learning, and then
returns to Gerard's Herbal with the comfortable sensation of slipping
away from a boring sermon into the pleasant spaciousness of an
old-fashioned fairy-tale. For the majority of us are not scientific,
nor do we care very much about being instructed. What we like is to
read about daffodils and violets and gilliflowers and rosemary and
thyme and all the other delicious old-fashioned English flowers. And
when we can read about them in the matchless Elizabethan English we
ask nothing more. Who that has read it once can forget those words in
the preface?--
"What greater delight is there than to behold the earth
apparelled with plants as with a robe of embroidered works,
set with Orient pearls and garnished with great diversitie
of rare and costly jewels? But these delights are in the
outward senses. The principal delight is in the minde,
singularly enriched with the knowledge of these visible
things, setting forth to us the invisible wisdome and
admirable workmanship of almighty God."
And could any modern writer give with such simplicity and charm the
"atmosphere" of the violet?
"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 Lancashire 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
title-page of the Herbal is probably an engraver's error.) John Gerard
was born at Nantwich in Cheshire 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 Cheshire."
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 ship'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 Hertfordshire. 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 quantitie 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 documents 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
illustrations in the Herbal, most of them taken from the same
wood-blocks that Tabernæmontanus (Bergzabern) used for his _Eicones_
(1590). Norton, the Queen's printer, procured the loan of these
wood-blocks from Nicolas Bassæus 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
illustrations 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 _Illustrationes_ 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 Lancashire 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.
[Illustration: 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
compasse 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 God'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 naïve
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 shell, and
divers such foolish toies, that I was constrained to take by
fantasticke peoples procurement, notwithstanding I say my helpe came
from God 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 cucumber 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 refreshing 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 superstitions "tending to witchcraft and sorcerie and
the great dishonour of God; 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 Hiberniæ_,
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 shells 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 shore
enclosed in shells 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
fictitious 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 Naturæ 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 illustrations 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
illustration 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 Cheshire and Staffordshire and Lancashire, 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 Glastonbury, but he is very cautious in his
account of it. "The white thorn at Glastonbury ... 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 space 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 fashion as the first, which if I be not deceived commeth to
pass 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 grasse because Pigeons are delighted to be
amongst it as also to eat thereof." Golden moth-wort, he tells us, is
called God's flower "because the images and carved gods 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 button 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 glasse, 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
Yorkshire, called Ingleborough, the other in Lancashire 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 brassica 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 passage 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 prickes,
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 principall 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 Lancashire 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 refreshing 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 Warwickshire, 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.
[80] Conrad Gesner drew up a codified list of choice plants cultivated
in the gardens of about twenty of his friends, with short lists of
rarities in certain gardens. Johann Franke published his _Hortus
Lusatiæ_ in forty-eight pages--a very scarce work--which is a
catalogue of all the plants growing near Launitz in Bohemia. The list
contains both wild and cultivated plants, and the latter are
distinguished by the addition of the letter H.
[81] This must have been Jean Robin, who in 1597 was appointed Keeper
of the King's gardens in Paris. We know that Gerard was on intimate
terms with him, and Robin sent him numerous plants, which he
gratefully acknowledges in his Herbal. Gerard frequently speaks of him
as "my loving friend John Robin."
[82] MSS. Record Office, James I. (Domestic), Vol. IX. fol. 113.
[83] W. Coles, _The Art of Simpling_.
[84] _Cosmographia Universalis_, 1572, p. 49.
[85] Shakespeare and Gerard were near neighbours during the time when
the former was writing many of his finest plays, for Shakespeare lived
in the house of a Huguenot refugee (Mountjoy by name) 1598-1604. This
house was at the corner of Mugwell Street (now Monkswell Street) and
Silver Street, very near the site of the ancient palace of King
Athelstan in Saxon days. Almost opposite Mountjoy's house was the
Barber-Surgeons' Hall. Aggers' Map (_circ._ 1560) with pictures of the
houses, gives an excellent idea of the neighbourhood in those days.
See also Leak's Map (1666).