[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.
[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).
"And I doe wish all Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, whom it may concerne, to bee as careful whom they trust with the planting and replanting of these fine flowers, as they would be with so many Iewels."--PARKINSON, _Paradisus_, 1629.
To English folk and Americans alike the herbals--now amongst the rarest in the English language--treating of the virtues of herbs in the New World are of exceptional interest. For these contain some of the earliest records of the uses of herbs learnt from the Red Indians, lists of English weeds introduced into America by the first settlers, and, perhaps most interesting of all, what they grew in the first gardens in New England. It requires very little imagination to realise how much the discovery of the New World meant to the botanists, gardeners and herbalists of that day, for at no time in our history were there greater plant-lovers than in Elizabethan and Stuart times. In their strenuous lives the soldiers, explorers and sea-captains found time to send their friends in the Old World rare plants and other treasures, and these gifts of "rarities" were cherished as jewels. Is not the following a vivid picture of the arrival of such a package from the New World? "There came a Paket, as of Letters, inrolled in a seare clothe: so well made that thei might passe to any part beeyng never so farre, the whiche beeyng opened, I founde a small Cheste made of a little peece of Corke, of a good thickenesse sette together, whiche was worthie to be seen, and in the holownesse of it came the hearbes, and the seedes that the Letter speaketh of, everythyng written what it was, and in one side of the Corke, in a hollowe place there came three Bezaar stones, cloased with a Parchement and with Waxe in good order. The Letter was written with verie small Letters, and sumwhat harde to reade." The letter and the precious gift of herbs, seeds and stones were from an officer on duty in "New Spain" (he describes himself as "a Souldier that have followed the warres in these countries all my life"), who was unknown to Monardes, but had read his first book on the use of the herbs in the New World, and therefore was emboldened to send him these rare plants and the "bezaar stones." Nicolas Monardes, the author of this herbal (translated into English by John Frampton),[86] most gratefully acknowledges his unknown friend's kindness and writes of him, "the gentleman of the Peru, which wrote to me this letter, although I know hym not, it seemeth that he is a man curious and affectioned to the like thinges and I have him in great estimation. For bicause that the office of a Souldier is to handle weapons, and to sheed bloud, and to do other exercises apertainyng to Souldiers, he is muche to bee esteemed that he will enquire and searche out herbes, and Plantes and to knowe their properties and vertue. And therefore I dooe esteeme muche of this Gentlemanne for the labour whiche he taketh in knowyng and enquiryng of these naturall thinges. And I doe owe much unto him, ... I wil provoke hym by writyng to hym againe, to sende more thinges. For it is a greate thinge to knowe the secreates and marvailes of nature, of the Hearbes which he hath sent me. I will make experience of them and I will know their vertues and operation and the Seedes wee will sowe at their time."