RICHARD WARNER (1711-1775).
215
discoveries materially enriched the herbarium and the "Species
Plantarum" of Linnaeus, and, having obtained the order of
Wasa and published more than eighty Opuscula, in Swedish or
Latin, mainly relating to the agriculture, commerce, manufac-
tures and natural products of Sweden, he died in 1779. The
fullest account of his life is that given in Hoefer's Nouvelle
Biographic Generale.
In 1748 the garden at "Harts" gave a new and beautiful
plant to the lovers of flowers, that known as the Cape Jasmine
(Gardenia florida).
Some coloured but faded sketches by Anne Clarke, now at
Idsworth, show the garden as it was in Warner's time, and,
though the maze and inscriptions are gone, the ruins of the
"abbey," the memorial stone to his mother, a fine old Weeping
Willow, and other trees and shrubs dating from his time, still
exist. The row of elms was enclosed by the Rev. Sir Samuel
Clarke Jervoise, but little of it now remains ; whilst the existing
house was built by——Mellish.
Having, in the many-sidedness of his culture, an educated
taste for our Elizabethan literature, and especially for that
relating to the drama, Warner, we are informed by Nichols
(p. 75), had, in 1768, "been long making collections for a new
edition of Shakespeare ; but on Mr. Steevens' advertisement11
"of his design to engage in the same task on a different plan,
"he desisted from the pursuit of his own." In that year (1768)
he published "A Letter to David Garrick, esq., concerning a
"Glossary to the Plays of Shakspeare on a more extensive
"Plan than has hitherto appeared. To which is annexed a
"Specimen. By Richard Warner, esq." This letter occupies
92 pages octavo, besides the title page and seventeen pages of
the Glossary. It was "printed for the Author : and sold by
"T. Davies in Covent Garden." It is dated "Woodford-Row,
"Essex, Janry 1st 1768," and commences—
" Sir,
" The many favours received during the course of a
long, uninterrupted and happy acquaintance. . . . "
Although turning aside to other studies, Warner was, Nichols
tells us, employed "to the last hour of his life" upon this Glos-
11 George Steevens published twenty of Shakespeare's plays in 4 vols., 8vo, in 1766, at the same
time announcing his proposed complete edition, which appeared in 1773.