26 JOHN GOODYER 



but unfortunately their information goes no further. There 

 is no hint as to where his house may have stood, or where 

 the first Artichokes increased so amazingly. The village, 

 writes Canon Vaughan, is but little changed since the time 

 when Izaak Walton spent the last days of his life resting 

 in * the cool shade of the honeysuckle hedge ' and watching 

 the moorhens * on the gliding stream '. The old mill is still 

 standing, on the bridge of which ' the aged angler must 

 often have lingered, as he watched the rush of water 

 making pleasant music beneath his feet ' and thought of his 

 fishings in swift streams ' full of great stores of trout '. 

 Nor would it have been very different in Goodyer's early 

 manhood. Then, as now, the church was flanked on either 

 side by the Manor House and the Rectory, with their 

 gardens, orchards, and pastures sloping down to the clear 

 running Meon. The underground tunnel from the Manor 

 House below the Rectory garden to the house beyond, may 

 or may not have existed : at present it is only a reality 

 in local tradition. Of greater permanence are those details 

 of uncultured nature, of the birds and flowers, which the 

 Canon has described so well : his sketch of the wild life 

 of ' Longmead ' bordering the Meon is for all time : that is 

 Droxford as Goodyer knew it. He would have recognized 

 the spot where the green Alkanet {AncJmsa semper vir ens) 

 puts forth its rich blue flowers and he would have revelled 

 in the rare beauty of the Yellow Meadow Rue in its season, 

 but it is doubtfid whether Coral Root would have escaped 

 him, had it been growing near Church Mead, where Canon 

 Vaughan tells us it grew within recent years. Certainly 

 there is no evidence that Goodyer knew it in Droxford 

 before he found it at Mayfield. Botanists tell us that 

 Coral Root is only found in this one locality in the whole 

 of Hampshire, and we may not unreasonably deduce that 

 Goodyer will have followed his usual practice of lifting 

 roots found away from home and planting them in his 

 garden. The Hampshire colony may be descended from 

 a garden-escape. Is it a clue to the site of his garden ? 



