22 THE APOTHECARIES' GARDEN 



He joined the Royalists took an active part 

 in defending Basing House was made Lieut. - 

 Colonel, fought bravely, and died of his 

 wounds. 



A portrait of Johnson in Elizabethan ruff is 

 seen at the foot of the accompanying photo- 

 graph of the title page of his book in the 

 library of the Apothecaries' Society. (Would 

 that as good a one had been engraved of 

 Shakespeare !) Ceres with wheat and Indian 

 corn, and Pomona with apples and pears, 

 appear at the top of the plate, and have their 

 place in a " Physic " herbal, as well as the 

 flowers with their butterflies and dragon-fly 

 on each side of Johnson's portrait. The bunch 

 of bananas which Johnson tasted is among the 

 flowers, and has not yet been placed under the 

 charge of Pomona. 



Other members of the Company now helped 

 with donations. One of them offered as much 

 as 500 towards a laboratory on the " waste 

 land." 



A private pew, with keys for the Master and 

 Wardens, was reserved for the Company in 

 Blackfriars church. Dinners in future were 

 to be held in the Apothecaries great Hall 

 instead of in taverns. 



Little they recked of the trouble to come, 

 when that great laboratory, the world ever 

 at work, ever destroying and creating anew 

 would be in full ferment round them ; when 

 England would be torn in pieces by civil war ; 

 when the " Great Sicknesse " would haunt 

 London with its " death carts," collecting the 

 unburied bodies, apothecaries' and all to pile 



