RICHARD WARNER (1711-1775). 211
Foot Onslow, did reside here, but, according to Lysons,6 at Little
Chelsey: and, secondly, Kitty Clarke dying before her uncle,
he left his property to her husband and children.
Such was the home to which Richard Warner came as a boy
of eleven,—a fine old country house, with large gardens and
paddocks, lying between Snakes' Lane, Woodford Green, Mun-
combe and the present station of the Great Eastern Railway
at Woodford.
The next point we know of in the life of our author is his
admission as a member of Wadham College, Oxford. This
occurred, as the writer is informed by the Warden (to whom he is
indebted for kind assistance readily given), between Midsummer
and Christmas 1730,7 Warner entering as a Commoner. He
took his B.A. degree in 1734, but does not appear to have pro-
ceeded to the M.A., though he retained a love for classical studies
and a kindly feeling towards his Alma Mater. "He was," says
Nichols.8 "bred to the law, and for some time had chambers
"in Lincoln's-Inn ; but, being possessed of an ample fortune,
"resided chiefly at a good old house at Woodford Green in
"Essex, where he maintained a botanical garden, and was
"very successful in the cultivation of rare exotics" ; or, as the
anonymous annotator of a copy of the Plantae Woodfordienses,
belonging to Mr. Fisher Unwin expresses it, he was "educated
"for the law, but a good fortune enabled him to give up that
"odious profession."
In his youth, Nichols informs us, he was remarkably fond
of dancing—a fact which, as Pulteney points out,9 is also
"related of the great Linnaeus," "nor till his rage for that diversion
"subsided, and," Lysons adds, "not without some reluctance,
"when he became more advanced in age, did he convert the
"largest room in his house into a library."
In 1743 his mother died, and in the garden at "Harts"
there still exists a stone inscribed by him to her memory. A
Bible at Idsworth printed in 1716 is inscribed, "Richard Warner
"1743, from his Mother," "Richard to his Nice Katherine
"Warner, 1754," and contains a long letter on reading the Bible
from Robert Warner to his daughter, dated "Belmont, 1st Feb.
6 Environs of London, vol. iii., p. 214, and vol. iv., p. 283.
7 He matriculated 18 July 1730, aged 17, at Wadham.
8 Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii., p. 75.
9 Historical and biographical sketches of the progress of Botany, 1790, vol. ii., p. 283.