DR. PHILEMON HOLLAND

MONG the literary celebrities speare as the basis of his Greek and /vk of the Elizabethan era Roman plays; “Resolute John Florio,” yyk there were three great whose translation is yet held by many ™ translators whose works yet as their favorite English version of Mon­ speak for them: Sir , taigne’s Essays, and Dr. Philemon Hol­ whose was utilized by Shake­ land, whose famous and generally pop­ ular translation was “The Historic of may be, as Sir says, Holland the World, commonly called the Nat- was very fond of parading it. According urall Historic of C. Plinius Secundus,” to Professor Silvette, Holland did not which was first printed in London in undertake to practice medicine until 1601. Prof. Herbert Silvette, of the Uni­ 1597, when he had been settled in Cov­ versity of Virginia, has just published* entry since 1579. He never seems to a very valuable bibliography of Hol­ have cut much of a figure as a practi­ land, prefaced by a brief summary of tioner, as his time must have been very the chief facts known concerning his fully occupied with his work as a trans­ life. lator. Of interest to physicians, besides Philemon Holland, the son of the his translation of Pliny, Holland pub­ rector of a small parish in , was lished a translation into English of the born in 1552. After receiving his pre­ “Regimen sanitatis Salerni,” which liminary education at a grammar school went through a number of editions, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and after Holland’s death his son pub­ where he got his m.a. in 1574. Eleven lished a translation of Bauderon’s years later, in 1585, he was incorporated French “Pharmacopeia” from a manu­ m.a. at Oxford. There is much mystery script left by his father. Holland’s trans­ as to where, if anywhere, he acquired a lations of and were medical degree. According to the Dic­ much esteemed. It is sad to relate that tionary of National Biography there is this learned scholar died in great pov­ no mention in the registers of either erty. For many years he taught school Oxford or Cambridge of his having ob­ in and the town authori­ tained it from either of those institu­ ties granted him a pension. Dr. Hol­ tions, and Sir Sidney Lee suggests that land died February 9, 1636 (old he obtained it from either a Scotch or style), at the advanced age of eighty- Continental university. However that four.