1532 Proccedini/s of the Royal Irish Academy. 



diagrams (993), a notice of the comets of 1680 and 1682 (1030, f. 123), 

 and curious receipts for several diseases (1001, ff. 32-57). From 1673 

 to 1683 he kept a series of commonplace-books. One is in French (1028), 

 one is in English and French (1036), while two are in Latin (1030 and 

 1031). These are really rough note-books, especially 1036, which is scarcely 

 decipherable. At the beginning of 1028 there is a quotation over the 

 signature Gddeon Bonnivert, " Quidquid a,gas, prudenter agas et respice 

 finem." There are other quotations, extracts, and short stories in this 

 manuscript. Some of them are De I'ame humaine, homicide, De Libertate, 

 Agamemnon, Bath, "ville fort ancienne dans le province de Somerset." 

 Another paper is entitled "L'A. B. C. du Monde" (1009, f. 199): 

 it seems to be a catalogue of the names of places with short descriptive 

 matter. The first name given is Aarak in Persia, while the last is Cagliari in 

 Sardinia. 



The letters, preserved in MSS. 4036, 4039, and 4058, he wrote show 

 how great was his love of botany. Unlike the people of his day, he 

 cared much for the beauties of nature, though this feeling is seldom to be 

 noticed in English literature till the days of Thomas Gray. Spenser a.nd 

 Shakespeare are not the poets of outward nature in the sense that Wordsworth 

 is. Both Jonson and Fletcher have written much that is beautiful in the 

 way of nature-poetry, and in this connexion Milton cannot be forgotten. 

 William Browne, the Puritan Wither, Eobert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, and 

 Sir John Denham sing of "brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers." Speaking 

 of Thomson, Wordsworth says that " it is remarkable that, excepting the 

 ' Nocturnal Eeverie ' of Lady Winchelsea, and a passage or two in the 

 ' Windsor Forest ' of Pope, the poetry of the period between the publication 

 of the ' Paradise Lost ' and the ' Seasons ' does not contain a single new image 

 of external nature, and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be 

 inferred that the eye of the poet had been steadUy fixed upon his object, 

 much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of 

 genuine imagination." 



Bonnivert was an eager botanist, as well as a lover of nature. To an 

 unknown correspondent he writes : " I must own the plant which did so long 

 puzzle me is Gramen Parnassi ; but who the devil is the man that knows no 

 more simples than 1, (how)could (he) have looked for that plant amongst the 

 Gramina.'" This illegibly dated letter gives an interesting account of his 

 botanical rambles in Oxfordshire. As a soldier he marched from place to 

 place ; and in the course of his walks about Dorchester he found rare plants. 



1 4058, f. 45. 



