GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
females, but to merely encourage them in the acquisition of 
botanical knowledge.” 
This makes curious reading at the present day. By what leaps 
and bounds have we advanced since that resolution was so grudg- 
ingly passed! We are not informed whether or not women were 
admitted to the lectures and to the demonstrations in the garden ; 
they might have been with perfect propriety, for it was one of 
the duties of the Demonstrator to preserve due “ decorum” 
~ among the students. Anyway, it is clear that without such 
admission the Apothecaries were simply offering a gift with one 
hand, and withholding it with the other. 
Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the neighbourhood 
of London was so rich in indigenous vegetation that the botanical 
parties on the occasion of the herborizing excursions, had not to 
go far afield; but sometimes they did so go, for a certain Mr. 
Johnson (whose identity I have not been able to establish, but 
who may possibly have been that Thomas Johnson, botanist, 
who edited Gerarde’s ‘‘ Herbalia ’”’ in 1633) describes his adventures 
on two such occasions. Travelling in those days was slow and 
risky ; the botanists went to Reading, Bath, Bristol, and the Isle 
of Wight, and home by Portsmouth and Guildford. The Latin 
and English names of the plants they collected are given, and the 
natural features of the landscape described. Johnson records 
with much gratitude the hospitality offered to the party. 
On a similar occasion, later on, the apothecaries explored Wales ; 
their course being by way of Chester, Flint, Carnarvon and Anglesey. 
Some of the plants were gathered on the heights of Snowdon at 
much personal risk to the collectors. At Chester a learned doctor 
of divinity joined them; he had been badly entertained at a 
certain inn at Stockport, and on leaving he expressed his resent- 
ment by writing some Latin verses on the walls of his bedroom, 
of which Field and Simple give the English translation : 
“Tf, Traveller ! you seek for quiet, 
An easy couch, a wholesome dict, 
A landlord with a smiling mien, 
A chambermaid whose face is clean, 
At Stockport you will never stay, 
But turn your steps another way. 
But if in filth your soul delights, 
At Stockport you may pass some pleasant nights.” 
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