Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/726

416 have had to congratulate Miss Rohde to-day on her excellent achievement. She has spared no pains; she has ransacked all the accessible libraries both here in Europe and in the United States, and she has brought together all that is known of English Herbals from the earliest Saxon period to the latest publication on Herbals and Sweet Waters. But she has not only collected, she has also studied; not being satisfied with merely giving a general outline of these books she has delved deeply into their contents, and with an eye for the picturesque and interesting, she has been able to pick out those items which are specifically characteristic of each. Nor has she forgotten the drawings; in some cases she has attempted to trace these back, if possible, to the very remote sources of the Greek MSS. of Doscorides or to still older prototvpes.

Starting from the earliest known Saxon MS., Miss Rohde allows her imagination to roam in wider fields, especially in those where knowledge and so-called superstition are fading one into the other. Then, one by one, she proceeds to describe most of the Herbals minutely, lingering for a while upon the Grete Herbal, paying special attention to Gerard's, and treating Culpeper's with sympathy, not to mention other minor adepts of the craft. Miss Rohde is not satisfied with merely giving us a description of the contents of these books, or specimens of their contents, but endeavours to trace each of them to its direct source. She illuminates many obscure connections, establishing the facts by which she arrives at her conclusions on the sound basis of scholarship.

She gives us an exhaustive bibliography of the MSS. which have a direct or indirect bearing on the English Herbals, inasmuch as they are either found in English libraries or contain English translations or glosses. She then follows up this list with one of all the English Herbals, with an exact indication of the places where they can be found, while a third bibliography contains the foreign Herbals, evidently chosen with the same aim of showing some direct or indirect connection with the English herbals. All the editions are mentioned, and thus the book becomes also a bibliographical handbook for the student of the subject. From these old editions Miss Rohde has