ASHMOLE'S VISIT 83 



on sounder lines of thought ; for after this visit Ashmole 

 ' took a journey into the Peake, in search of plants and 

 other curiosities ' ; and as there is no entry between the 15th 

 and the 29th of October of this year in the notebook,^ in 

 which he usually cast his horoscopes, we may assume that 

 he was not encouraged to foretell Goodyer's future by the 

 stars. 



1652-6 



The books printed in Oxford during the next few years 

 bear witness to the pleasure and profit that many were 

 deriving from their gardens. And in illustration we may 

 cite the works of Ralph Austen on Fruit Trees, various 

 editions of which were published in Oxford in 1653, 1657, 

 1658, and 1665, of John Beale whose Treatise on Fj'uit 

 Trees shewing their manner of Grafti^ig, Pruning, and 

 Ordering, of Cyder and Perry, of Vineyards in Eng- 

 land, &c., appeared in Oxford in 1653, and of Robert Shar- 

 rock, Fellow of New College,^ whose History of the Pro- 

 pagation and Improvement of Vegetables, by the Conctirrence 

 of Art and Nature, 8vo. Oxford, 1660. These works 

 show the natural tendency of the time, a utilitarian 

 tendency that our recent experiences towards the end of 

 the Great War will teach us to connect with the troubles 

 of the forties of the seventeenth century. 



During the last ten years of his life Goodyer's occupations 

 appear to become more and more sedentary. When a man 

 is over sixty years of age, he must perforce leave the 

 searching for new plants to the young and active. John 

 Goodyer now devoted himself to his books. The dated 

 entries in the covers of his volumes show that he kept in 

 the closest touch with the London booksellers ; indeed, in 

 some cases he appears to have secured a work in advance 

 of the day of publication. Some of his books he pro- 



^ MS. Ashmole, 374, which contains the horoscope of John Tradescant, the 

 younger. 



'^ Sharrock gave several medical books, with his autograph, to New College 

 Library. They are still, we are glad to think, on the shelves : among others 

 a copy of Lower, de Corde. 



G 2 



