Albertus seems to have had a fine scorn for that branch of the science now known as Systematic Botany. He considered that to catalogue all the species was too vast and detailed a task, and one altogether unsuited to the philosopher. However, in his Sixth Book he so far unbends as to give descriptions of a number of plants.

As regards abstract problems, the views of Albertus on plant life may be summed up as follows. The plant is a living being, and its life principle is the vegetable soul, whose function is limited to nourishment, growth and reproduction—feeling, desire, sleep, and sexuality, properly so called, being unknown in the plant world.

Albertus was troubled by many subtle problems connected with the souls of plants, such questions, for instance, as whether in the case of the material union of two individuals, such as the ivy and its supporting tree, their souls also united. Like Theophrastus, and other early writers, Albertus held the theory that species were mutable, and illustrated this view by pointing out that cultivated plants might run wild and become degenerate, while wild plants might be domesticated. Some of his ideas, however, on the possibility of changes from one species to another, were quite baseless. He stated, for instance, that, if a wood of oak or beech were razed to the ground, an actual transformation took place, aspens and poplars springing up in place of the previously existing trees.

The temperate tone of the remarks made by Albertus on the medical virtues of plants contrasts favourably with the puerilities of many later writers. Much of the criticism from which he has suffered at various times has been, in reality, directed against a book called ‘De virtutibus herbarum,’ the authorship of which was quite erroneously attributed to him. We shall refer to this work again in Chapter VIII.

After the time of Albertus, no great student of Aristotelian botany arose before Andrea Cesalpino, whose writings, which belong to the end of the sixteenth century, will be considered in a later chapter. The work of Cesalpino had great qualities, but, curiously enough, it had little influence on the science of his time. He may be regarded as perhaps the last important representative of Aristotelian botany.

3. Medicinal Botany.

With the Revival of Learning, the speculative botany of the ancients began to lose its hold upon thinking men. This may be attributed to the curious lack of vitality, and the absence of the power of active development, manifested in this aspect of the subject since its initiation at the hands of Aristotle. It had proved comparatively barren, because, though the minds which engaged in it were among the finest that have ever been concerned with the science, the basis of observed fact was inadequate in quality and quantity to sustain the philosophical superstructure built upon it. It might have been supposed a priori that accurate observation of natural phenomena needed a less highly evolved type of mind than that required to cope with metaphysical considerations, and hence that, in the development of any science, the epoch of observation would have preceded the epoch of speculation. In actual fact, however, the reverse appears to have been the case. The power of scientific observation seems to have lagged many centuries behind the power of reasoning, and to have reached its maturity at least two thousand years later.

Aristotle and Theophrastus arrived by the subtlest mental processes at a certain attitude towards the universe, and at certain ideas concerning the nature of things. They attempted a direct advance in scientific thought by extending these conceptions to include the plant world. It was an heroic effort, but one which could not ultimately form a basis for continued progress, because, in its inception, preconceived ideas had come first, and the facts of Nature second. It seems to be almost a law of thought, that it is the indirect advances which in the end prove to be the most fertile. The progress of a science, like that of a sailing boat, more often proceeds by means of “tacking” than by following a direct course.

In the case of botany, the path which was destined to lead furthest in the end was the apparently unpromising one of medicine. Various plants from very early times had been used as healing agents, and it became necessary to study them in detail, simply in order to discriminate the kinds employed for different purposes. It was from this purely utilitarian beginning that systematic botany for the most part originated. As we shall show in later chapters, nearly all the herbalists whose work is discussed in the present volume were medical men. The necessity for some means of recognising accurately the individual species of medicinal plants led in time to a sounder and more exact knowledge of their morphology than had ever been acquired under the influence of thinkers such as Albertus Magnus, who regarded with some contempt the idea of becoming acquainted in detail with the countless forms of plant life.

The mass of observations relating to herbs and flowers, accumulated during a period of many centuries, largely for medicinal purposes, is to-day serving as the basis for far-reaching biological theories, which could never have arisen without such a foundation.

It is not systematic botany alone that we owe in the first instance to medicine. Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), one of the founders of the science of plant anatomy, was led to embark upon this subject because his anatomical studies as a physician suggested to him that plants, like animals, probably possessed an internal structure worthy of investigation, since they were the work of the same Creator.

In Ancient Greece there was considerable traffic in medicinal plants. The herbalists2 and druggists3 who made a regular business of collecting, preparing and selling them, do not appear however to have been held in good repute. Lucian makes Hercules address Æsculapius as “a root-digger and a wandering quack4.”

The herbalists seem to have attempted to keep their business select by fencing it about with all manner of superstitions, most of which have for their moral that herb-collecting is too dangerous an occupation for the uninitiated. Theophrastus draws attention to the absurdity of some of the root-diggers’ directions for gathering medicinal plants. For instance he quotes with ridicule the idea that the Peony should be gathered at night, since, if the fruit is collected in the daytime, and a wood-pecker happens to witness the act, the eyes of the herbalist are endangered. He also points out that it is folly to suppose that an offering of a honey-cake must be made when Iris fœtidissima is rooted up, or to believe that if an eagle comes near when Hellebore is being collected, anyone who is engaged in the work is fated to die within the year.

The herbalists’ knowledge of plants must have been in the first place transmitted from generation to generation entirely by word of mouth, but as time went on, written records began to replace the oral tradition. The earliest extant European work dealing with medicinal plants is the famous Materia Medica of Dioscorides, which was accepted as an almost infallible authority as late as the Renaissance period.

Dioscorides Anazarbeus was a medical man who probably flourished in the first century of the Christian era, in the time of Nero and Vespasian. Tradition has, however, sometimes assigned to him the post of physician to Antony and Cleopatra. His native land was Asia Minor, but he appears to have travelled widely. In his Materia Medica he described about five hundred plants, with some attempt at an orderly scheme, though, naturally, the result is seldom successful when judged by our modern standards of classification. The actual descriptions of the plants are very slight, and it is only those with particularly salient characteristics which can be recognised with any ease. Careful research on the part of later writers has however led to the identification of a number of the plants to which he refers.

There is a famous manuscript of Dioscorides at Vienna, which is said to have been copied at the expense of Juliana Anicia, the daughter of the Emperor Flavius Anicius, about the end of the fifth, or the beginning of the sixth century. The character of the script settles the age within narrow limits. Juliana lived into the reign of Justinian, and was renowned for her ardent Christian faith, and for the churches which she built. The manuscript which bears her name is illustrated by a number of drawings, which are in some cases remarkably beautiful, and very naturalistic. A facsimile reproduction of this manuscript was published in 1906, and it is thus rendered accessible to students. Examples of the figures are shown on a reduced scale in Plates I, II and XV.

The botanists of the Renaissance devoted a great deal of time and energy to the consideration of the writings of Dioscorides. The chief of the many commentators who dealt with the subject were Matthiolus, Ruellius and Amatus Lusitanus, and a discussion of the botany of Dioscorides formed an integral part of almost every sixteenth-century herbal.

One of the contemporaries of Dioscorides, Gaius Plinius Secundus, commonly called the Elder Pliny, should perhaps be mentioned at this point, although he was not a physician, nor does he deserve the name of a philosopher. In the course of his ‘Natural History,’ which is an encyclopædic account of the knowledge of his time, he treats of the vegetable world. He refers to a far larger number of plants than Dioscorides, probably because the latter confined himself to those which were of importance from a medicinal point of view, whereas Pliny mentioned indiscriminately any plant to which he found a reference in any previous book. Pliny’s work was chiefly of the nature of a compilation, and indeed it would scarcely be reasonable to expect much original observation of nature from a man who was so devoted to books that it was recorded of him that he considered even a walk to be a waste of time!

The writings of the classical authors, especially Theophrastus and Dioscorides, dominated European botany completely until, in the sixteenth century, other influences began to make themselves felt. As we shall see in the following chapter, the earliest printed herbals adhered closely to the classical tradition.

CHAPTER II
THE EARLIEST PRINTED HERBALS

(Fifteenth Century)

1. The Encyclopædia of Bartholomæus Anglicus and ‘The Book of Nature.’

AFTER the invention of printing, a very active period of book production followed, during which many works, which had previously passed a more or less lengthy existence in manuscript, were put into circulation in print, contemporaneously with books actually written at the time. The result is that a number of the “incunabula,” as printed books of the fifteenth century are technically called, are far more ancient, as regards the matter which they contain, than the date of their publication would seem to suggest.

This characteristic is illustrated in the Encyclopædia of Bartholomæus Anglicus, and in Konrad von Megenberg’s ‘Das půch der natur,’ which were perhaps the earliest printed books containing strictly botanical information. The former work, which was first printed about 1470, was compiled by a monk, sometimes called Bartholomew de Glanville, who flourished in the thirteenth century. The title by which it is generally known is ‘Liber de proprietatibus rerum.’ One of the sections of which it is composed is concerned with an account of a large number of trees and herbs, arranged in alphabetical order, and is chiefly occupied with their medicinal properties. It also includes some theoretical considerations about plants, on Aristotelian lines. An English translation, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde before the end of the fifteenth century, is interesting as containing the very primitive botanical wood-cut reproduced in Text-fig. 19.

‘Das půch der natur’ is slightly later as regards the date of publication, having been printed by Hanns Bämler at Augsburg in 1475. It seems to have been very popular, for it passed through six or seven editions before the end of the fifteenth century. A very large number of manuscripts of ‘The Book of Nature’ exist, as many as eighteen being preserved in the Vienna Library and seventeen at Munich. The text is a compilation from old Latin writings, and is said to have been translated into German as early as 1349. The portion dealing with plants consists of an account of the virtues of eighty-nine herbs with their Latin and German names. The chief interest of the work, from our present point of view, lies in the fact that it contains the earliest known botanical wood engraving (Plate III). We shall return to this subject in Chapter VII.

2. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus.

Another very early book based on classical writings, especially those of Dioscorides and Pliny, was the ‘Herbarium’ of Apuleius Platonicus. This little Latin work is among the earliest to which the term “Herbal” is generally applied. A herbal has been defined as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues. The word is believed to have been derived from a mediæval Latin adjective “herbalis,” the substantive “liber” being understood. It is thus exactly comparable in origin with the word “manual” in the sense of a hand-book.

Four early printed editions of the Herbal of Apuleius Platonicus are known, all of which appear to have been based on different manuscripts. The earliest was published in Rome late in the fifteenth century, from a manuscript discovered by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, physician to Pope Sixtus IV. Nothing is definitely known concerning the author, but it is conjectured that he was a native of Africa, and that his book may date from the fifth century, or possibly even the fourth. The work undoubtedly had a career of many centuries in manuscript before it was printed.

These illustrations, some of which are reproduced in Plates IV, V and XVI, and Text-figs. 1 and 2, will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter VII. One of their peculiarities is that, if a herb has the power of healing the bite or sting of any animal, that animal is drawn with the plant on the same block.

Soon after the appearance in Italy of the earliest printed editions of the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, three works of great importance were published at Mainz in Germany. These were the Latin ‘Herbarius’ (1484), the German ‘Herbarius’ (1485), and derived from the latter, the ‘Hortus Sanitatis’ (1491). The Latin and the German Herbarius, together with the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, may be regarded as the doyens amongst printed herbals. All three seem to have been largely based upon pre-existing manuscripts, representing a tradition of great antiquity.

The various forms of the Latin and German Herbarius, and of the Hortus Sanitatis are described under many titles, and the unravelling of the various editions is a matter of great difficulty. In the fifteenth century, before copyright existed, as soon as a popular work was published, pirated editions and translations sprang into existence. In the case of the German Herbarius, a new edition was printed at Augsburg only a few months after the appearance of the original at Mainz. Some such editions were dated, and some undated, and the sources from which they were derived were seldom acknowledged.

The passage of the earliest printed books through the press was naturally extremely slow, as compared with the rapid production of the present day. The result was that the printer had leisure to make occasional alterations, so that different copies belonging actually to the same edition sometimes show slight variations. The bibliographer has thus to deal with an additional element of confusion.

3. The Latin Herbarius.

The work to which we may refer for convenience as the Latin Herbarius is also known under many other titles—‘Herbarius in Latino,’ ‘Aggregator de Simplicibus,’ ‘Herbarius Moguntinus,’ ‘Herbarius Patavinus,’ etc. It was originally printed at Mainz by Peter Schöffer in 1484, in the form of a small quarto. It is interesting to recall that the earliest specimen of printing from movable type known to exist was produced in the same town thirty years before.

Other early editions and translations of the Herbarius appeared in Bavaria, the Low Countries, Italy, and probably also in France. The work, like most of the early herbals, was anonymous, and was a compilation from mediæval writers, and from certain classical and Arabian authors. It seems to have no connection with the Herbarium of Apuleius, which is nowhere cited. The majority of the authorities quoted wrote before 1300 A.D. and no author is mentioned who might not have been known to a writer about the middle of the fourteenth century, that is to say, at least a hundred years before the Herbarius was published. It is quite possible that the work was not written at the time it was printed, but may have had a previous career in manuscript.

The wood-blocks of the first German edition are bold and decorative, but as a rule show little attempt at realism (Text-figs. 3, 4, 5 and 73). A different and better set of figures were used in Italy to illustrate the text (Text-figs. 6, 57, 65, 74, 75, 76). The authorship of this version of the Herbarius is sometimes erroneously attributed to Arnold de Nova Villa, a physician of the thirteenth century, a mistake which arose through the conspicuous citation of his name in the preface to the Venetian editions.

The descriptions and figures of the herbs are arranged alphabetically. All the plants discussed were natives of Germany or in cultivation there, and the object of the work seems to have been to help the reader to the use of cheap and easily obtained remedies, in cases of illness or accident.

4. The German Herbarius and related Works.

Of even greater importance than the Latin Herbarius is the German Herbarius or ‘Herbarius zu Teutsch,’ sometimes also called the German Ortus Sanitatis, or the Smaller Ortus. This folio, which was the foundation of the later works called Hortus (or Ortus) Sanitatis, appeared at Mainz, also from the printing press of Peter Schöffer in 1485, the year following the publication of the Latin Herbarius. It has been mistakenly regarded by some authors as a mere translation of the latter. However, the two books are neither the same in the text nor in the illustrations. The German Herbarius appears to be an independent work except as regards the third part of the book—the index of drugs according to their uses—which may owe something to the Latin Herbarius.

It seems from the preface that the originator of the book was a rich man, who had travelled in the east, and that the medical portion was compiled under his direction by a physician. The latter was probably Dr Johann von Cube, who was town physician of Frankfort at the end of the fifteenth century.

The preface to the Herbarius zu Teutsch begins with the words, “Offt und vil habe ich by mir selbst betracht die wundersam werck des schepfers der natuer.” Similar words are found in all the different German editions, and in the later Hortus Sanitatis they are translated into Latin. The preface reveals so clearly and so delightfully the spirit in which the work was undertaken that it seems worth while to translate it almost in extenso.

It is impossible, however, to grasp the medical ideas characteristic of the earlier herbals, such as those presented in the preface which follows, unless one understands the special terminology, in which the “four elements” and the “four principles” or “natures” play a great part. The ideas expressed by these terms had begun to dominate medical and physiological notions five or six hundred years before the birth of Christ, and they held their own for a period of more than two thousand years. As an instance of their constant occurrence in literature we may recall Sir Toby’s remark in ‘Twelfth Night,’ “Do not our lives consist of the four elements?” In Aristotle’s time these conceptions must have been already quite familiar to his pupils. Like, his predecessors he distinguished four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air, and to these he added a fifth—the Ether. In the four elements, the four principles are combined in pairs—fire being characterised by heat and dryness, air by heat and moisture, water by cold and moisture, and earth by cold and dryness. According to Aristotle, heat and cold are active, while dryness and moisture are passive in their nature. By the “temperament” of a man is understood the balance or proportion maintained between these conflicting tendencies. The particular “virtues” of each plant, in other words the power of restoring lost health or “temperament,” are determined by the “principles” which it contains, and the proportions in which these occur. With this introduction we may pass on to the preface of the Herbarius zu Teutsch5:

“Many a time and oft have I contemplated inwardly the wondrous works of the Creator of the universe: how in the beginning He formed the heavens and adorned them with goodly, shining stars, to which He gave power and might to influence everything under heaven. Also how He afterwards formed the four elements: fire, hot and dry—air, hot and moist—water, cold and moist—earth, dry and cold—and gave to each a nature of its own; and how after this the same Great Master of Nature made and formed herbs of many sorts and animals of all kinds, and last of all Man, the noblest of all created things. Thereupon I thought on the wondrous order which the Creator gave these same creatures of His, so that everything which has its being under heaven receives it from the stars, and keeps it by their help. I considered further how that in everything which arises, grows, lives or soars in the four elements named, be it metal, stone, herb or animal, the four natures of the elements, heat, cold, moistness and dryness are mingled. It is also to be noted that the four natures in question are also mixed and blended in the human body in a measure and temperament suitable to the life and nature of man. While man keeps within this measure, proportion or temperament, he is strong and healthy, but as soon as he steps or falls beyond the temperament or measure of the four natures, which happens when heat takes the upper hand and strives to stifle cold, or, on the contrary, when cold begins to suppress heat, or man becomes full of cold moisture, or again is deprived of the due measure of moisture, he falls of necessity into sickness, and draws nigh unto death. There are many causes of disturbances, such as I have mentioned, in the measure of the four elements which is essential to man’s health and life. In some cases it is the poisonous and hidden influence of the heavens acting against man’s nature, for from this arise impurity and poisoning of the air; in other cases the food and drink are unsuitable, or suitable but not taken in the right quantities, or at the right time. Of a truth I would as soon count thee the leaves on the trees, or the grains of sand in the sea, as the things which are the causes of a relapse from the temperament of the four natures, and a beginning of man’s sickness. It is for this reason that so many thousands and thousands of perils and dangers beset man. He is not fully sure of his health or his life for one moment. While considering these matters, I also remembered how the Creator of Nature, Who has placed us amid such dangers, has mercifully provided us with a remedy, that is with all kinds of herbs, animals and other created things to which He has given power and might to restore, produce, give and temper the four natures mentioned above. One herb is heating, another is cooling, each after the degree of its nature and complexion. In the same manner many other created things on the earth and in the water preserve man’s life, through the Creator of Nature. By virtue of these herbs and created things the sick man may recover the temperament of the four elements and the health of his body. Since, then, man can have no greater nor nobler treasure on earth than bodily health, I came to the conclusion that I could not perform any more honourable, useful or holy work or labour than to compile a book in which should be contained the virtue and nature of many herbs and other created things, together with their true colours and form, for the help of all the world and the common good. Thereupon I caused this praiseworthy work to be begun by a Master learned in physic, who, at my request, gathered into a book the virtue and nature of many herbs out of the acknowledged masters of physic, Galen, Avicenna, Serapio, Dioscorides, Pandectarius, Platearius and others. But when, in the process of the work, I turned to the drawing and depicting of the herbs, I marked that there are many precious herbs which do not grow here in these German lands, so that I could not draw them with their true colours and form, except from hearsay. Therefore I left unfinished the work which I had begun, and laid aside my pen, until such time as I had received grace and dispensation to visit the Holy Sepulchre, and also Mount Sinai, where the body of the Blessed Virgin, Saint Catherine, rests in peace. Then, in order that the noble work I had begun and left incomplete should not come to nought, and also that my journey should benefit not my soul alone, but the whole world, I took with me a painter ready of wit, and cunning and subtle of hand. And so we journeyed from Germany through Italy, Istria, and then by way of Slavonia or the Windisch land, Croatia, Albania, Dalmatia, Greece, Corfu, Morea, Candia, Rhodes and Cyprus to the Promised Land and the Holy City, Jerusalem, and thence through Arabia Minor to Mount Sinai, from Mount Sinai towards the Red Sea in the direction of Cairo, Babylonia, and also Alexandria in Egypt, whence I returned to Candia. In wandering through these kingdoms and lands, I diligently sought after the herbs there, and had them depicted and drawn, with their true colour and form. And after I had, by God’s grace, returned to Germany and home, the great love which I bore this work impelled me to finish it, and now, with the help of God, it is accomplished. And this book is called in Latin, Ortus Sanitatis, and in German, gart d’gesuntheyt6. In this garden are to be found the power and virtues of 435 plants and other created things, which serve for the health of man, and are commonly used in apothecaries’ shops for medicine. Of these, about 350 appear here as they are, with their true colours and form. And, so that it might be useful to all the world, learned and unlearned, I had it compiled in the German tongue.

******

“Now fare forth into all lands, thou noble and beautiful Garden, thou delight of the healthy, thou comfort and life of the sick. There is no man living who can fully declare thy use and thy fruit. I thank Thee, O Creator of heaven and earth, Who hast given power to the plants, and other created things contained in this book, that Thou hast granted me the grace to reveal this treasure, which until now has lain buried and hid from the sight of common men. To Thee be glory and honour, now and for ever. Amen.”

Passing from the preface to the botanical part of the German Herbarius, we find that it is divided into chapters, each of which deals with a herb, except in a comparatively small number of cases in which an animal, or a substance useful to man such as butter or lime, forms the subject. The chapters are arranged in alphabetical order.

The Herbarius zu Teutsch represents a notable advance upon the Latin Herbarius in the matter of the figures. Its publication, according to Dr Payne, “forms an important land-mark in the history of botanical illustration, and marks perhaps the greatest single step ever made in that art.” This estimate seems to the present writer to be somewhat exaggerated, but it must at least be conceded that the figures in question are, on the whole, drawn with greater freedom and realism than those of the Latin Herbarius, and are often remarkably beautiful (Text-figs. 7, 77, 78). The most attractive is perhaps that of the Dodder climbing on a plant with flowers and pods (Text-fig. 77), which is drawn in a masterly fashion. These wood-cuts form the basis of nearly all botanical illustrations for the next half-century, being copied and recopied from book to book. No work which excelled, or even equalled them was produced until a new period of botanical illustration began with the Herbal of Brunfels, published in 1530.

The German Herbarius was much copied and translated into other languages, the original set of figures being, as a rule, reproduced on a smaller scale. According to Dr Payne, the earliest French edition called ‘Arbolayre’ (derived from the Latin, herbolarium) is now an exceedingly rare book. It is said to differ little from the original except in the fact that the French translator declined to believe the myth that the Mandrake root has human form.

Another early French herbal, very similar to the Arbolayre, was published under the name of ‘Le Grant Herbier.’ The origin of the text of this book has been the subject of some discussion. Choulant regarded it as derived from the Ortus Sanitatis, but an Italian authority, Signor Giulio Camus, has discovered two fifteenth-century manuscripts in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena, which have thrown a different light on the subject. One of these is the work commonly called ‘Circa instans,’ while the other is a version of the Grant Herbier; on comparing the two, Signor Camus concluded that the French manuscript was obviously derived from Circa instans. A version of the latter, differing somewhat from the Modena manuscript, was printed at Ferrara in 1488, and other editions appeared later.

The figures which illustrate the Grant Herbier seem to have been derived from those of the Ortus Sanitatis rather than those of the Herbarius. The work is of special interest to British botanists, since it was translated into English and published, in 1526, as the ‘Grete Herball,’ a book which will be discussed at length in the following chapter.

Another work, which appeared with reduced copies of the familiar illustrations from the German Herbarius, was the ‘Liber de arte distillandi de Simplicibus’ of Hieronymus Braunschweig (1500). In this book, the method of distilling herbs, in order to make use of their virtues, was described in considerable detail, with drawings of the apparatus employed.

The Ortus Sanitatis is very rich in pictures. The first edition opens with a full-page wood-cut, modified from that at the beginning of the German Herbarius, and representing a group of figures, who appear to be engaged in discussing some medical or botanical problem. Before the treatise on Animals, there is another large engraving of three figures with a number of beasts at their feet, and before that on Birds, there is a lively picture with an architectural background, showing a scene which swarms with innumerable birds of all kinds, whose peculiarities are apparently being discussed by two savants in the foreground. The treatise on Fishes begins with a landscape with water, enlivened by shipping. There are two figures in the foreground, and in the water, fishes, crabs and mythical monsters such as mermen, are seen disporting themselves. Before the treatise on Stones, there is a very spirited scene representing a number of figures in a jeweller’s shop, and two large wood-cuts of doctors and their patients illustrate the medical portion with which the book concludes.

The treatise on Plants is considerably modified from the German Herbarius, and the virtues of the herbs described are dealt with at greater length. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus is more than once quoted, though not by name. A number of new illustrations are added, some of which are highly imaginative. The Tree of Life (Text-fig. 12) and the Tree of Knowledge are dealt with amongst other botanical objects, a woman-headed serpent being introduced in the first case, and Adam and Eve in the second. There is a beautiful description of the virtues of the Tree of Life, in which we read that he who should eat of the fruit “should be clothed with blessed immortality, and should not be fatigued with infirmity, or anxiety, or lassitude, or weariness of trouble.” The engraving which is named Narcissus (Text-fig. 13) has diminutive figures emerging from the flowers, like a transformation scene at a pantomime! It is probably, however, intended to represent the conversion of the beautiful youth, Narcissus, into a flower. Apart from these mythological subjects, there are a number of very curious engravings. A tree called “Bausor,” for instance, which was believed to exhale a narcotic poison, like the fabulous Upas tree, has two men lying beneath its shade, apparently in the sleep of death (Text-fig. 14).

Among the herbs, substances such as starch, vinegar, cheese, soap, etc., are included, and as these do not lend themselves to direct representation, they become the excuse for a delightful set of genre pictures. “Wine” is illustrated by a man gazing at a glass; “Bread,” by a housewife with loaves on the table before her (Text-fig. 15); “Water,” by a fountain; “Honey,” by a boy who seems to be extracting it from the comb; and “Milk,” by a woman milking a cow. The picture which appears under the heading of Amber shows great ingenuity (Text-fig. 16). The writer points out that this substance, according to some authors, is the fruit or gum of a tree growing by the sea, while according to others it is produced by a fish or by sea foam. In order to represent all these possibilities, the figure shows the sea, indicated in a conventional fashion, with a tree growing out of it, and a fish swimming in it. The writer of the Ortus Sanitatis, on the other hand, holds the opinion that Amber is generated under the sea, after the manner of the Fungi which arise on land.