SOME ESSEX NATURALISTS 315
By marriage the house passed to the Onslow family,
which included Arthur Onslow, who was Speaker to several
parliaments. It is said that Arthur Onslow was born at
"Harts ", but, according to Lysons, he was born at Little
Chelsey. The house then passed into other hands and was
purchased in 1722 by Mrs. Warner, who lived here until her
death in 1743, when it was left to Richard Warner.
Richard, upon the conclusion of his studies at Oxford,
took up the study of the law, but although he had chambers
in Lincoln's Inn, does not appear to have practised. An
anonymous annotator of a copy of ''Plantae Woodfordien-
sis" expresses the situation very concisely in these words :—
"He was educated for the law, but a good fortune
enabled him to give up that odious profession."
Consequently, he spent the greater part of his time at
Woodford, where he occupied himself with his garden, with
dancing—of which he was very fond—and with his literary
work.
Shortly after his death a letter appeared in the "Gentle-
man's Magazine" for 1789:—
'' The house is furnished with a choice collection of
paintings by eminent masters, and a good library of books,
with many choice articles worthy to be seen by the lovers
of antiquity. The gardens are laid out with rural care
and elegant taste. There is a large and intricate maze,
and a thatched house in the middle, with lines Latin and
English emblematic of the situation, which are falling to
decay. There is, likewise, an artificial ruin of an abbey
which does honour to the designer; the walls, which are
entwined with ivy, are decorated with Gothic windows
and painted glass; the broken arches and romantic dis-
position of the ruins are so artfully contrived as to make
the observer imagine it is in reality what it artificially
means ..."
Richard Warner had a wide knowledge of Elizabethan
literature, and at one time contemplated the issue of an
edition of the works of Shakespeare, but did not proceed
when he learned that someone else was doing the same
thing. All the manuscripts and papers he had collected and
prepared for this purpose he bequeathed to David Garrick.