Another learned Cestrian was Dr. William Falconer, born at Chester in 1741. He was learned in science and horticulture, and published several works, including _An Historical View of the taste for Gardening and Laying-out Grounds among the Nations of Antiquity_; _An Essay on the Means of Preserving the Health of those employed in Agricultural Labours_; and _A Sketch of the History of Sugar in Early Times_. HISTORIANS Many are the writers on Cheshire history whose names should be recorded--men who have loved their county and desired to tell of its beauties and historical associations. We can only mention a tithe of those worthy sons who have done honour to their shire, and accomplished work which has been often little understood or appreciated by their fellows. The first of these is a name honoured by all historians, Henry Bradshaw, a native of Chester and a monk of St. Werburgh’s Abbey, who lived in the latter part of the fourteenth century. He was one of the earliest chroniclers of Cheshire, and wrote his works in the cloistered shade of his monastic house. His works consist of a treatise, _De Antiquitate et Magnificentiâ Urbis Cestriæ_, and a translation of “The Holy Lyfe and History of Saint Werburge, very frutefull for all Christen people to rede.” The first work is believed to have been lost, unless it is incorporated in the latter treatise, as Dr. Gower suggested. Perhaps we should have included Henry Bradshaw amongst our poets, in whose company he well deserves a high and important niche. His body lies near the shrine of the saint of whose virtues he loved to sing. John Booth of Twamlowe, a contemporary of Sir William Brereton, was a distinguished Cheshire genealogist who occupies a foremost place amongst the antiquaries of the county. His works have been most useful to subsequent writers. John Speed, born at Farndon in 1552, is a writer of whom any county may be proud. An account of this learned historian has already appeared in this volume. The disputes of the learned often cause amusement, and the controversy between the rival baronets, Sir Peter Leicester and Sir Thomas Maynwaring of Over Peover, aroused much merriment in 1673-75. Sir Peter published a learned work in two volumes on the historical antiquities of Great Britain and more particularly of Cheshire, in which he asserted that Amicia, daughter of Hugh Keveliock, fifth Earl of Chester, a descendant of Hugh Lupus, was illegitimate. This aroused Sir Thomas Maynwaring, whose ancestor had married the said Amicia. He published a defence of the injured lady. Then Peter wrote an answer to Sir Thomas’s book, who retaliated with another book. So the controversy went on, each disputant waxing more wroth, until at last a law-suit ensued, the result being in favour of the champion of Amicia.