richard warner's "plantae Woodfordienses." 70
written from Walthamstow in 1802: this letter, by permission
of the Council of the Society, I have been allowed to photograph
and to reproduce in facsimile. (Plates V. & VI.)
I have thus been able to submit the manuscript annotations
to a close criticism from the point of view of penmanship, and
as a result I have become fully convinced that the writing is the
writing of Benjamin Meggot Forster and not that of Edward
Forster. I do not propose to go into details, but I may call
attention to the shaping of the capital letter F, the small letters
f and k, the figures 8 and 4, and the habit of placing a colon where
most people would put a simple dot, as features which are common
FIG. I.—AUTOGRAPHS OF BENJAMIN AND EDWARD FORSTER.
to both Benjamin's letter and signature and to the manuscript
annotations, whilst there is no such correspondence with Edward's
writing.
It was then Benjamin Forster who collected the plants and
who formed the herbarium, referred to as "my Walthamstow
herbarium," now included in Edward Forster's Collection at the
British Museum, and who wrote the MS. notes. When Benjamin
died, in 1829, his surviving brother must have inherited his
effects, including his herbarium and the annotated copy of
Warner's "Plantae Woodfordienses," and these, twenty years
later, at Edward's own decease, were wholly attributed to him