34 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



through the resignation of Dr Steward, who had been 

 appointed by Queen Mary, and who doubtless shared 

 her religious convictions, Prebendary Warner was at 

 once nominated to the position. He was installed on 

 i5th October 1559, and remained Dean of Winchester 

 until his death in 1564. As Prebendary and as Dean 

 Dr Warner was thus associated with the Cathedral for 

 fifteen years. As a Doctor of Medicine, in an age 

 when herbalism was intimately connected with the art 

 of healing, we should expect him to be interested in 

 botany. And that he was so interested is shown 

 beyond all manner of doubt by the discovery in the 

 Cathedral library of a botanical work bearing his 

 signature. It is a folio copy of De Natura Stirpium by 

 Joannes Ruellius, a French physician, and published 

 by Froben at Basle in 1537. The volume, which is 

 without illustrations and was mainly intended to 

 elucidate the writings of the ancient botanists, is in the 

 original leather binding, with remains of the iron clasps 

 and with the iron rivet for a chain. It is also to be 

 noticed that the famous printer Froben has utilised a 

 Latin manuscript, as in the case of our Fuchs' Herbal, 

 in the process of binding the volume. I wondered how 

 this botanical treatise came to be in a theological 

 library, and it was with a thrill of delight that I at 

 length discovered the following inscription on one of 

 the pages : "Ex dono Do. Jo. Warneri nuper decani 

 Wynton." I have also discovered a similar entry in a 

 folio copy of Dioscorides' De Medica Mater ia, published 

 at Cologne in 1529 : " Liber Joanis Warneri." But for 

 the Dean's name in Fuchs' Herbal I have searched the 

 nine hundred pages in vain. Too much, however, must 

 not be made of this fact. It was not the general custom 



