, a contributor to the study of natural history in this country
, a contributor to the study of
natural history in this country in the seventeenth century,
was by birth a Dutchman, as we are informed by Anthony
Wood. On what occasion, and at what period he came
into England, is not precisely ascertained, but it may be
supposed to have been about the end of queen Elizabeth’s
reign, or the beginning of that of James I. as Hollar’s
print of him, engraved in 1656, represents him as a person very far advanced in years. He is said to have been
for a considerable time in the service of lord treasurer Salisbury and lord Wooton. He travelled several years, and
into various parts of Europe; as far eastward as into Russia.
In 1620 he was in a fleet that was sent against the Algerines;
and mention is made of his collecting plants in Barbary,
and in the isles of the Mediterranean. He is said to have
brought the trifolium stellatum of Linnseus from the isle of
Fermentera; and his name frequently occurs in the second
edition of Gerard, by Johnson in Parkinson’s “Theatre
of Plants,
” and in his “Garden of Flowers,
” printed in