180 HISTORY OF ESSEX BOTANY.
a total of 2116 figures, under the name Kruydtboech. A copy of
this edition with the figures coloured is now in the Musee
Plantin-Moretus at Antwerp. At the same time an impression
of the icons, with 75 additional ones, was printed in an oblong
quarto, and in 1591 this was reprinted with "an index, in seven
languages, which rendered it a very popular book for many
years."33 In 1592 Lobel went to Denmark in the train of Queen
Elizabeth's ambassador, Lord Edward Zouch, and, apparently
after this, he had the charge of a physic garden at Hackney, of
which Lord Edward paid the expenses. He obtained the title
of Botanographer to King James I, published a second edition
of the Adversaria in 1605, and died at Highgate, 3rd March, 1616.
He had a daughter married to Mr. James Cole or Coel, "a
merchant of London, a lover of plants, and very skilful in the
knowledge of them," to whom we owe the introduction of the
cherry-laurel (Cerasus lauro-cerasus). As Cole lived at Highgate,
Lobel may have spent his last years in his daughter's house. It
is also nearly certain that Paul de Lobell, the apothecary of
Lyme Street who married the sister of Dr. (afterwards Sir
Theodore) Mayerne, physician to James I., and who was
employed to give the poison to Sir Thomas Overbury in 1615,
was a son of the botanist. "Lobel had meditated a very large
work, which was to have borne the title of Illustrationes
Plantarum ; but he lived not to finish it. Some of his papers fell
into the hands of Parkinson, and were incorporated into his
Theatrum. A fragment of the above-mentioned work was pub-
lished by Dr. How, in 1655 ; which contains the descriptions of
many grasses, and other plants newly discovered, or lately intro-
duced. Of the grasses, many here recorded were first dis-
covered by Lobel. The preface contains some severe censures
on Gerard, and reflexions on the treatment Lobel had received
from booksellers ; all written in a style very reprehensible in a
man of letters."34 Even a somewhat partial biographer, M.
Edouard Morren, is compelled to admit that "Son caractere
personnel, entache de jactance et d'orgueil, perce trop souvent
dans ses ecrits."33 Lobel's undoubted additions to our Essex
list are mainly in this fragment of the Illustrationes, though there
is one other on which I must give a few details. In Parkinson's
Theatrum, pp. 1234 and 1236, appears the following record :—
33 Pulteney, op. cit. p. 105.
34 Pulteney loc. cit.
35 Matthias de I'Obel, sa vie et ses aeuvres.