'Yes, we fixed it up in the motor on the way to your old show. I give you my word, I didn't know I was going to take the plunge when we started; but I don't mind telling you that I've been meditating it for some time past. You look a bit astonished, Hilton. Fancied I was after the girl, what? Not such a fool, my boy. I may have had thoughts of her at first; but I precious soon saw that, as a wife, Miss Dot would give rather more trouble than she was worth. I won't run her down though, now that she's to be my niece by marriage; and I know she's wormed herself into your affections.'

After some gracefully bantering allusions to my weakness for the young lady and to the spill which had been one of its results, he rose to depart. He said he had waited to give me his news, but now he must get home and change. We should meet again at dinner, he cheeringly informed me; and so took himself off, leaving me to wonder whether he had invited himself to dine or whether Henrietta had had the requisite self-control and presence of mind to invite him. I likewise wondered whether my wife had foreseen this queer, not unsatisfactory dénouement, and whether it was what Mrs. Lumley had been working for all along; but I came to the conclusion that they were neither of them quite so astute as all that, and I thought I knew who was astute enough for anything. I was meditatively smiling in anticipation of what I might expect to hear from that victorious little schemer when Bob put his head in at the door. His long body followed as soon as he had satisfied himself that the coast was clear.

'I thought I'd give old Bates time to have his breath out,' he said, as he advanced, looking somewhat sheepish and contrite. What a rum thing, eh?'

'I've nothing against it,' I said.

'Oh, there's nothing against it. But who would ever have believed that he could be disposed of like this?'

'Only one person, perhaps,' I answered. 'It strikes me that you owe that person an apology, Bob.'

'I've made it-on my bended knees. She's-she's' He paused a long time, casting about him for some adequate adjective, and finally ejaculated: She's amazing!'

'She is,' I agreed; and I am not sure that her imperturbable good-humour isn't the most amazing thing about her. I don't suppose she bears any malice against you.'

Bob's self-conscious giggle rather irritated me; I don't know

why certainly not because I was in any sort of way prepared for what was coming.

'She's so far from bearing malice against me for having misjudged her,' he answered, 'that she says she'd have had a precious poor opinion of me if I hadn't. We had a talk while we were sitting on the bank, you know, waiting for the motor. She thought it was a pity I should go away under a false impression; so she-er --in fact, she told me all about it.'

'Yes?'

'Yes. Then I told her something which-which she more or less knew without being told; and then-- Well, to cut a long story short, we're engaged to be married, she and I.'

Now I do think that the father of three expensive sons was to be excused for addressing the youngest of them with some sharpness in reply to so very cool an intimation as this. I could not afford to double Bob's allowance, nor had I any intention of so doing. If he had been encouraged to imagine that I should act in such a way, and if, upon the strength of that encouragement, he had made a donkey of himself, I was sorry; but he must not hold me to blame.

'The person who is most to blame,' I remarked, 'is your mother for asking you to come here at all. I suggest that you impart your agreeable intelligence to her and see what happens.'

'Oh, mother's all right,' returned Bob, with a grin. 'I've told her, and she's delighted.'

I could scarcely believe my ears. 'Delighted to hear that you have engaged yourself to a penniless girl?' I gasped.

'Well, you see,' said Bob,' she isn't going to be exactly penniless. Mrs. Lumley forfeits her money by marrying again, and Dot comes into all that her aunt has. That makes a difference-at least, I suppose you'll think so.'

What I thought was that if my future daughter-in-law's unquestionable talent had justified her in taking some rather bold risks, it did not follow that she had been entitled to place the life or limbs of a fellow-creature in jeopardy.

'Bob,' said I, 'I waive my claim to compensation for shock and disturbance, but I'll trouble you and Dot for the cost of repairing a badly damaged gig. I know now-I know very well indeed—why she tugged at her near rein by way of getting round a left-hand corner.'

W. E. NORRIS.

A FORGOTTEN BOTANIST OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

THE search after simples must have been a fascinating occupation in the far-off days of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when, from a scientific and historical standpoint, the flora of Great Britain was in the making. A botanical itinerary in England or Wales was almost certain to produce some plant hitherto unknown to exist in our country. When Dr. William Tanner, Dean of Wells, in the reigns of Edward VI. and of Queen Elizabeth, published his black-letter' Herbal,' some three hundred British species only were enumerated. A century later the number of plants in Ray's 'Catalogue' had risen to 1,050; and when in 1696 the second edition of his 'Synopsis' was published fully 1,600 species are described. In many instances the names of those who by their discoveries had thus helped to enrich our knowledge of British plants are duly remembered. The labours of such men as Lobel, Gerard, Johnson, Parkinson are abundantly evident in their writings. In some cases the finder's name has been bestowed upon the plant itself, and in this way the services of Sherard, Sibthorp, Teesdale, and others have been commemorated. In many instances, however, the honour due to our early herbalists has been but scantily recognised, and the names of several who rendered distinguished service to the science in its early days have passed into almost total oblivion. Among these we would venture as a conspicuous example to place the name of Mr. John Goodyer, of Maple Durham, in Hampshire. His services are repeatedly acknowledged in contemporary botanical literature; by virtue of the large number of rare plants which he discovered he should undoubtedly be placed at the head of our Hampshire botanists, and yet his name is passed over in silence in the Dictionary of National Biography,' and the very identity of his place of residence has been called in question.

The name of Mr. John Goodyer first appears in the second edition of Gerard's Herbal,' considerably enlarged by Thomas

Johnson, and published in 1633, in which work the editor thus alludes to him:

In the first place let me remember the only Assistant I had in this Worke, which was Mr. John Goodyer of Maple Durham in Hampshire, from whom I received many accurate descriptions, and some other observations concerning plants the which (desirous to give every man his due) I have caused to be so printed, as they may be distinguished from the rest and thus you shall know them; in the beginning is the name of the plant in Latine in a line by it selfe and at the end his name is inscribed; so that the Reader may easily finde those things that I had from him, and I hope together with me will be thankful to him, that he would so readily impart them for the further increase of this knowledge.

This method of indicating his work enables the 'painful' reader, by carefully going through the huge folio of over sixteen hundred pages, to discover the extent of Goodyer's contributions. From forty to fifty times his name appears, and many of the plants discovered by him must be ranked among the most interesting in our flora. We are not surprised to find Parkinson, a few years later, speaking of him in his Theatrum Botanicum,' published in 1640, as a great lover and curious searcher of plants, who hath found in our country many plants not imagined to grow in our land. I wish,' he adds,' that there were more of his minde, that not hindering their affaires at spare times would be industrious to search out and know what the ground bringeth forth.' In the same strain he is referred to by Dr. How in his Phytologia,' and by Merret in his Pinax,' who speaks of him as an incomparable botanist, of sound judgement and of immense industry.' Ray frequently acknowledges his services, both in the Synopsis' and in the List of Rare Plants' which he supplied to Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia.' And Pulteney, in his botanical 'Sketches,' published in 1790, thus sums up the very brief notice of his work: The great number of rare English plants which Mr. Goodyer first brought to light, entitles him to the most reputable rank among those who have advanced the botanical knowledge of the kingdom.'

It is strange that the memory of one whose services to British botany are so frequently and gratefully recognised in the pages of Johnson and Parkinson, of How and Merret and John Ray, should thus have passed so completely away. It has seemed good, therefore, to a humble follower of this distinguished Hampshire botanist to place on record the few details of his career which, by dint of much investigation, he has been able to discover. Almost every locality mentioned by Goodyer in his botanical expeditions as the

habitat of some rare plant has been visited, together with the site of his old home at Maple Durham, and the churchyard at Buriton beneath the slopes of Butser Hill, where his remains lie. A copy of his will, made shortly before his death in the spring of 1664, lies on the writer's table, and from this document a few particulars of interest have been obtained.

6

It will be noticed that our botanist is invariably spoken of as 'Mr. John Goodyer,' a manner of address which indicates an individual of some position, and as of Maple Durham, Hampshire.' Now, curious as it may seem, the existence of a Maple Durham in Hampshire' came to be doubted in modern times. In the year 1883, when the Flora of Hampshire' was first published, the editor remarks that Maple Durham is in Oxfordshire, and suggests a possible misprint for Maple Durwell, near Basingstoke. In the second edition, which appeared only four years ago, we are told that in Morden's Map of Hampshire in Camden's Britannia' Maple Durwell is written Mapledurham; and the suggestion of a possible Maple Durham near Petersfield is abandoned. And yet this suggestion is the right one. Maple Durham was an ancient mansion situated in the tithing of Weston, in the parish of Buriton, some two miles from Petersfield on the Portsmouth road. Unfortunately the house was pulled down some fifty years ago, but an old print of the sixteenth-century building shows it to have been of stately proportions. During the troubles of the Reformation period Maple Durham was owned by a Roman Catholic family of the name of Shelley, and the fine mansion was often a place of refuge for Roman priests. We are told that at Mr. Shelley's large Manor House of Mapledurham, and at the neighbouring farmhouse of Weston, priests were always sure to find a welcome, a place to say their Masses, and a secure hiding-place.' Sometimes as many as six or seven priests were in hiding at the same time. The place is frequently mentioned in the State Papers' and other documents of the time. We learn that at Mapledurham House there be great shifts for the hiding of priests, as under a little table was a vault, with a grating of iron for a light into the garden, as if it were a window of a cellar, and against the grating groweth rosemarye.' And again, there is a hollow place in the parlour by the livery cupboard, where two men might well lie together, which hath many times deceived the searchers.' The owner's name, Mr. Henry Shelley, frequently occurs in the Lists of Roman Catholic recusants, and after much persecution the