92 JOHN GOODYER 



Goodyer, nor more ready to remedy them. Our informa- 

 tion comes through Edward Morgan, the ' very skihul 

 botanist' of Westminster, who was in close touch with 

 what was going on in the botanical world. He told John 

 Ward in 1662 that Dr. Dale, Dr. Merrett, and Mr. Goodyer, 

 ' next Dr. Modesy, the best botanists of their age in 

 London, were about a new phytologia 3 or 4 years agoe ', 

 but that ' Dr. Modeseye's coming to towne, itt's thought, 

 hindered itt '. Elsewhere Ward ^ also noted that ' Dr. Dale 

 and another had a designe to amend y^ phytologia 

 Brittaiiica to adde somewhat and take out somewhat '. 

 This contemporary account is of the greatest interest to 

 us, because it explains the presence of certain excellent 

 catalogues of British plants among the Goodyer manu- 

 scripts (Goodyer MS. 8, 9, see p. 296), and it also explains 

 why they were never printed. I have not as yet found 

 any clue to the handwriting, but I strongly suspect it to be 

 that of Doctor John Dale, and the 'another' to have been 

 Goodyer himself. The case will be again considered in 

 our note on Dr. Dale, and in the light of his Will which 

 I have recently discovered at Somerset House. 



The 30 April 1659 must have been a red-letter 

 day, for he then received the interleaved and annotated 

 copy of the Phytologia to which reference has so often 

 been made, and possibly with it the Lobel manuscripts 

 which are described in a later chapter. Their late owner 

 and part editor, Dr. How, died 30 August 1656. 



The greater number of manuscript notes in the Phyto- 

 logia are in How's handwriting: they include inforrnation 

 received from William Browne of Magdalen College and 

 from John Goodyer, obviously between 1650 and 1656. 

 Goodyer after acquiring the volume wrote in it the notes 

 on seven plants, printed on p. 194, including his last 

 dated record of a plant, the Common Ragwort {Senecio 

 Jacobaea L.) from Ladle Hill (1659). 



' Ward also noted that ' Mr. Goodyer is good at Insects as well as 

 plants.' 



