20 THE APOTHECARIES' GARDEN 



men's minds had become more anxious and 

 serious. A few years later in 1642 an order 

 came to close the playhouse. 1 



Cobham House, with its land and smaller 

 houses, cost the Apothecaries 1,000 not an 

 extravagant sum. Arrangements with tenants 

 were soon made, repairs and alterations finished, 

 and in December, 1632, the Apothecaries' 

 Company Corporation, Freemen and all 

 met there and rejoiced on entering into their 

 promised land. 



Qualifications for membership now became 

 strict. Physicians were asked to attend the 

 examinations. Stewards were appointed to 

 arrange botanical excursions. Bad and danger- 

 ous drugs exposed for sale were seized, and 

 burnt at the Hall. 



One of the members, Thomas Johnson, of 

 Snow Hill, further up the Fleet, had finished 

 his enlarged edition of Gerard's Herball, and 

 was thanked for a copy he presented. " John- 

 son's * Gerard ' " a great book, well-known to 

 botanists much used in country houses, in the 

 1 8th century, as a book on botany and weird 

 domestic medicine in the i9th century, as a 

 book of designs for Art Needlework. 



Thomas Johnson had exhibited in his shop 

 window in Snow Hill the first bunch of bananas 

 seen in London. He had received them from 

 his " much-honored friend, Dr. Argent, Pre- 

 sident of the Colledge of Physitions." They 

 had come all the way from the " still-vex'd 



1 The Lord Mayor had already tried, ineffectually, to close the 

 theatre, owing to the crowd it occasioned in Water Lane. 

 London Past and Present, Wheatley. 



