Old English herbals 1525-1640 / by Horace Mallinson Barlow.

  • Barlow, Horace Mallinson, 1884-
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Old English herbals 1525-1640 / by Horace Mallinson Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and the whole is an excellent specimen of copper-plate engraving. Like the complete edition of Turner and the herbals of Lyte and Gerard, Lobel’s work has a fulsome dedication to Queen Elizabeth. Next comes a second dedication to the Professors of the University of Montpelier, followed by a Latin index consisting of six leaves. The text occupies the pages numbered 1 to 455, followed by an unnumbered single leaf containing an account, illustrated on the verso by two wood- cuts, of the Plocamos of Portland and the legend of the barnacle shells producing wild geese. The above volume forms the first part of the “ Adversaria.” The second was not published till 1605, when a re-issue of the original sheets of the first part with an entirely new title-page appeared with it. This was erroneously regarded by Pulteney as a second edition. It runs:— “ Dilucidae | Simplicium Medicamenorum [sic] | Explicationes, | & Stirpium Adversaria | | | | Authoribus Petro Pena & Matthia de L’Obel medicis. | Quibus Accessit Altera Pars, cum prioris | Ulustrationibus, Castigationibus, Auctariis, Rarioribus aliquot Plantis. | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | Opera et studio eiusdem Matthise de L’Obel. | . . . | Londini, 1605. Idibus Aprilis. | Ex Topographia Thomse Purfootii.” On the back of the title are the Arms of James I, followed on the next leaf by the dedication to the Montpelier Professors. The dedication to Elizabeth is naturally omitted. The text of the work is made up of the original sheets printed in 1570, with the exception of the last leaf, which is reprinted, in inferior type on thinner paper, with a new colo- phon, but without the two woodcuts. This will be referred to later. The title of the second part begins :— “ Matthise de Lobel | | | | Adversariorum Altera Pars,” | &c., &c. [continued at some lengtK]. Above are the arms of James I. This second part follows the first with a continuous pagination beginning on sig. Qq 2 (the new extra leaf to the first part having the sig. Qq [i]) and ending on page 549. From the bibliographical standpoint, the first part of the “Adversaria” is of great interest. The irregularity in the printing of the last leaf gave rise to the extraordinary statement by Pulteney that Christopher Plantin of Antwerp, and not Purfoot, was the real printer of the work. Such however was not the case, and in the interests of English printing it is necessary to rectify this error, which has been copied by later writers. On examining Purfoot’s publication of 1605, consisting of the