Cole, William

, an English botanist, was the son of a clergyman, and born at Adderbury, in Oxfordshire, | about 1626. After he had been well-instructed in grammar-learning and the classics, he was entered in 1642 of Me rton- college, in Oxford. In 1650 he took a degree in arts; after which he left the university, and retired to Putney, near London; where he lived several years, and became the most famous simpler or botanist or his time. In 1656 he published “The art of simpling, or an introduction to the knowledge of gathering plants, wherein the definitions, divisions, places, descriptions, and the like, are compendiously discoursed of;” with which was also printed “Perspicillum microcosmologicum, or, a prospective for the discovery of the lesser world, wherein man is a compendium, c.” And in 1657 he published “Adam in Eden, or Nature’s paradise: wherein is contained the history of plants, herbs, flowers, with their several original names.” Upon the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, he was made secretary to Duppa, bishop of Winchester, in whose service he died in 1662. ¹