in the order of Lobel's ‘Adversaria;’ it contained more than eighteen hundred woodcuts, only sixteen of which were original, the majority being the identical cuts used by Bergzabern (better known as Tabernæ-montanus) in his ‘Eicones,’ 1590, which were procured from Frankfort by the king's printer, John Norton. The volume has many of Gerard's own remarks inserted, such as localities in various parts of England for scarce plants, and many allusions to persons and places now of high antiquarian interest. He lays claim to a purely scientific object, but accepts much contemporary folk-lore, which does not detract from the interest of his volume. In the opening pages figure some quaint verses by ‘Thomas Thorney, master in chirurgerie,’ and an epistle by George Baker (1540–1600) [q. v.] On 15 Jan. 1598, and again 20 July 1607, he was appointed an examiner of candidates for admission to the freedom of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, then exercising as complete control of the surgeons practising in London as the various medical boards do at the present time. In 1604 he was granted a lease of a garden adjoining Somerset House by the queen-consort of James I, but in 1605 he parted with his interest in it to Robert, earl of Salisbury, second son of Lord-treasurer Burghley. In the legal documents connected with this lease Gerard is described as ‘herbarist’ to James I. Upon payment of a fine of 10l. Gerard was released from the office of ‘second warden and upper governor’ of his company 26 Sept. 1605. He was chosen master of the Barber-Surgeons' Company 17 Aug. 1607. He died in February 1611–12, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church, Holborn (18 Feb.), but there is no monument to mark the spot.
In 1633 Thomas Johnson edited a new edition of the ‘Herball,’ which was so well received that a reprint of it, word for word, was brought out in 1636. The genus Gerardia was founded by Linnæus in commemoration of John Gerard, and it now includes about thirty species, chiefly North American. In 1639 the Barber-Surgeons' Company paid 25s. 6d. for a copy of Gerard's ‘Herball’ for their library. Gerard's works were: 1. ‘Catalogus arborum, fruticum, ac plantarum tam indigenarum quam exoticarum in horto Ioannis Gerardi civis et chirurgi Londinensis nascentium,’ London, 1596, 12mo, pp. iv, 18, 2nd edit., 1599, fol.; the same, reprinted by B. D. Jackson, 1876, 4to, with modern names and memoir of the author. 2. ‘Herball,’ London, 1597, fol.; the same edited by T. Johnson, London, 1633, and again in 1636.
A fine portrait of Gerard is prefixed to the ‘Herball.’
[Life of Gerard in reprint of Catalogus, 1876; Arber's Reprint of Stationers' Registers, iii. 21; information from the Archives of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, kindly supplied by Mr. Sidney Young.]
GERARD, JOHN (1564–1637), jesuit, second son of Sir Thomas Gerard, knight, of Bryn, Lancashire, by Elizabeth, eldest daughter and coheiress of Sir John Port, knight, of Etwall, Derbyshire, was born on 4 Oct. 1564, probably at New Bryn. He received part of his education in the English College at Douay, where he arrived 29 Aug. 1577, and apparently accompanied the students in their migration to Rheims in the following March. It seems that he subsequently returned to England, and was matriculated in the university of Oxford as a member of Exeter College about October 1579 (Boase, Register of Exeter Coll., pp. 186, 218). Being unable conscientiously to comply with the religious observances of the college, he left it within twelve months and went home. In 1581 he proceeded to Paris, and studied for some time in Clermont College, which belonged to the jesuits, but ill-health compelled him again to return to England. An unsuccessful attempt which he afterwards made to leave this country without a government license resulted in his apprehension and imprisonment in the Marshalsea prison, from which he obtained his release in October 1585. In the following year he was admitted into the English College at Rome, where he was ordained priest. He joined the Society of Jesus in Rome on 15 Aug. 1588, and was at once sent on the English mission. His activity soon attracted the attention of the government, but for a long time he baffled all the attempts of spies and pursuivants to apprehend him. Eventually, while on a visit to London, he was betrayed by a servant, and was imprisoned successively in the Compter, the Clink, and the Tower, where, by order of the privy council, he underwent the horrible torture of being suspended by the wrists for hours at a time, and was nearly crippled for life. A graphic account of his extraordinary escape from the Tower in October 1597, by swinging himself along a rope suspended over the Tower ditch, is given in his autobiography. With characteristic courage he continued his missionary labours, and the government never captured him again. In 1603 Gerard, in the belief that submission to James I might bring about a removal of catholic disabilities, discountenanced Watson's plot, and gave information about it to the government. Though Gerard's trust in James was soon dissipated, ‘there is strong reason to believe,’ writes Mr. Gardiner, ‘that he was not made acquainted
