lyte's caky. 29 



not find in the dedications and verses, Latin and English, 

 in praise of tlie author, anythiug which shows him to have 

 had any botanlcal garden of bis own. 



" I have Seen in the Bishop's Register at Wells, an insti- 

 tution to a chapelry at Lyte's Gary, but wbetber this 

 refers to the cbapel attached to the house or to the north 

 transept of the parish church I do not know. That tran- 

 sept belonged to Lyte's Gary, but so far as my memory 

 serves, was reserved wlien the property was sold. It 

 became the property of Mr. Shute, the south transept 

 having been also bis and mine jointly. 



" The Lyte family have certainly been seated at Lyte's 

 Gary from very early times. I have seen the name 

 repeatedly in early deeds concerning an almshouse at 

 Dchester. The tradition in the neighbourhood is that 

 they came in with AVilllam the Gonqueror, and that the 

 name is indicative of their being blacksmiths ; certainly if 

 this had been exactly true, their name would have been 

 French, not English. 



" There is a little book in the British Museum ' Of Decimal 

 Arithmetic by Henry Lyte, gentleman, 1619,' and areprint 

 of ' The light of Britayne, 1588.' It is a quaint book, in 

 which every English place is made out to be named after 

 something of classical celebrity, and he by no means for- 

 gets his own home : ' The famous ryver of Mceander is in 

 Caria. This Moeander ryver had golden sands and singing 

 swannes that sometime served Venus, queene of Phrygia 

 and Garia, wherefore the swannes of Garia, and signettes 

 of Troy in Britayne, must alwaies singe of Troy and the 

 Troyans.' And again : ' Brüte of Albania, the founder of 

 Britayne, who brought in Garius a noble Prince of Lydia 

 and Garia, with the people of Garie, and swans of Garie, 

 into Britayne. By the oracles aforesaid the swans of Garie 



