WILLIAM HOW 251 



Ten years later William How, a young doctor of St. John's 

 College, Oxford, was assiduously collecting notes for the first 

 British Flora. Concise in the choice of its information and scrupu- 

 lous in its duty of quoting authorities, the Phytologia Britannica 

 of How was the antithesis to the Thcatriim of Parkinson. It was 

 printed in 1650, almost certainly before the author had acquired 

 the Lobel MSS. About 22 Jan. 1651 Lobel MSS., or some of them, 

 appear to have been in the hands of a man of learning,^ who then 

 copied out many Latin descriptions of plants (Goodyer MS. H, 

 ff. 104-21). 



How was a most indefatigable hunter after exact localities of 

 plants. He would have searched the Theatrinn in vain for informa- 

 tion which he afterwards found clearly given in Lobel's MS., and 

 which he would have assuredly included in the Phytologia^ had only 

 Parkinson quoted authorities : and Parkinson had still further 

 transgressed by taking Lobel's credit of priority to himself. 



This appears to be one explanation of the violence of How's 

 criticisms of Parkinson's lapse from the higher standards of literary 

 honesty. My friend Dr. Church has suggested another motive 

 which might well repay a more extended inquiry. Parkinson was 

 a Puritan, whereas How was probably, like Goodyer and his friends, 

 a Royalist. 



It is reasonable to suppose that How's first idea after realizing 

 the originality of Lobel's work was to publish it in iota. It was, 

 however^ in Latin, and the market had already been spoilt by the 

 appearance of two popular works, Johnson's Gerar'd emaadaUis in 

 1633 and Parkinson's TJieatrnvi in 1640, and no publisher would 

 undertake a third. 



Yet Lobel's ' volumes were compleat. The Title 1 Epistles ! and 

 Diploma affix'd '. How, indignant that Parkinson had, as he put it, 

 ' murdered his (Lobel's) genuine scrutiny in treacherous oblivion,' 

 and perhaps dimly conscious that his time for work through failing 



follow the roots of a species of ' Pease ' by scrapping away the beach between 

 Orford and Aldborough, 'vntill hee got some equall in length vnto his height, 

 yet could come to no ends of them'. Cer. e7iiac. 125 1. And during the last 

 year of his Presidency of the College of Physicians, he gave Johnson the first 

 bunch of Bananas that was ever exhibited in a London shop. Ger. emac. 15 15. 

 ^ The handwriting of the unknown commentator is characterized by the 

 frequent use of scrolls. We have noted it in Goodyer MSS. 8 and 9 and in 

 Goodyer's copy of Parkinson's Theatrum, and have evidence that the writer 

 was closely associated with Goodyer about 1650 to 1659. There is reason to 

 believe that the writer was Goodyer's friend and neighbour, Dr. John Dale 

 of East Meon and of Long Acre in London, who died in 1662. 



