IQO YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION. 



it with ardour, taking the side of the royalists. I have not 

 time now to tell once again the story, which those who do not 

 know it already may read in Clarendon or Carlyle, of how 

 fiercely Basing-house was attacked by the parliamentary forces 

 and how bravely it was defended. Our great Yorkshire herbalist 

 was in the thick of the fight as a lieutenant-colonel on the 

 royalist side, and I give the sequel in the words of a sympa- 

 thising contemporary: — 'Going with a party on the 14th of 

 September, 1644, to succour certain of the forces belonging to 

 that house, which went to the town of Basing to fetch provisions 

 thence, but were beaten back by the enemy, headed by that 

 notorious rebel, Colonel Richard Norton, he received a shot in 

 the shoulder, of which he died in a fortnight after. At which 

 time his worth did justly challenge funeral tears ; being then no 

 less eminent in the garrison for his valour and conduct as a 

 soldier, than famous through the kingdom for his excellency as 

 a herbalist and physician.' Robert Brown has named in his 

 memory the genus Johnsonia, and from it is taken the name of 

 one of the tribes of Liliacese. 



Parkinson, the author of two large and well-known herbals, 

 who was a cotemporary of Gerard and Johnson, I pass over, as 

 he had no connection with Yorkshire. 



The ' Phytologia Britannica ' of William How, published 

 in 1650, a duodecimo of 133 pages, is the first attempt at a 

 special catalogue of English plants. How had a correspondent 

 at Barnsley, a Mr. Stonehouse, who contributed to it a notice 

 of several localities. The Civil war, of course, whilst it lasted, 

 left men little opportunity or inclination for the sciences, 

 but in the more peaceful days that followed the restoration of 

 the monarchy they revived. The Royal Society was first 

 granted a Charter of Incorporation by Charles II in 1665. 

 The first paper in its ' Transactions ' is an account of Cam- 

 pani's improved telescope ; the second, by Hook, on a spot on 

 one of the belts of Jupiter ; the fourth an account of a series of 

 experiments on temperature, by the Honble. Robert Boyle ; and 



Trans.y.N.U., 1883 (pub. 1885). Series E 



