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2
apothecaries in those days representing general practitioners as well as drug-
ists. On the succeeding year he published a relation of his plant-hunting
excursions - "simpiling voyages", as he called them - into Kent and to
Hampstead Heath. This was the first printed account of such expeditions
to appear in this country. On the journey into Kent, the party, which
consisted of ten persons, travelled by two boats from St. Paul's to
Gravesend, encountering a storm on the way. At Queenborough their journey
was delayed by the Mayor, who desired the attendance of three or four of
them to know the business of so large a party of travellers in those parts.
Fortunately he accepted their explanations, and the interview ended with
the drinking of healths in excellent ale. On the Kentish expedition more
than 250 plant species were collected, while 72 were obtained from Hampstead
Heath and the country round. 93
The Herball of John Gerard had been published in 1597 and in
the succeeding thirty-six years there had been no new edition, nor had any
subsequent book taken its place. It contained many errors, which were partly
accounted for by the fact that the text was a translation from Dodoens,
rearranged according to the method of Lobel, and illustrated by a collection
of figures which had been used by Tabernaemontanus. In 1632, the
successors of the original publisher, being alarmed by the idea that a
competing herbal by Parkinson was about to appear, commissioned Johnson to
prepare a new edition of Gerard's book, allowing him only one year for the work. This was a colossal undertaking. Not only was it necessary to correct Gerard's errors and add original matter, but, to illustrate the book, a different and larger collection of
2766 figures had to be fitted into the text; these were the wood blocks used
in the famous series of herbals published by Plantin of Antwerp. Johnson
himself speaks of "the hast of the worke, whereby I was forced to performe
this task within the compass of a year". One can but marvel at the high
standard which he attained, though working under such pressure. Considering
his period, his scholarly scrupulousness in editorial work was remarkable. He
evolved an elaborate system of marking the text to distinguish the degrees to
which he had altered or rewritten Gerard's descriptions, and those accounts