years; and was not only zealous in the discharge of the duties confided to him, but made the society a present of a hundred pounds, and remitted a very considerable sum owing to him by the corporation. Sir Hans was no less liberal to other learned bodies; he had no sooner purchased the manor of Chelsea than, in 1721, he gave the Apothecaries' Company the freehold of their Botanical Garden, upon the following conditions, viz., the payment of five pounds per annum, and the yearly offering of fifty plants to the Royal Society, till the number amounted to two thousand. If it were attempted to convert it to any other use, it was to devolve to the Royal Society, and ultimately to the College of Physicians; but the intentions of the original donor have been faithfully and liberally fulfilled by the Apothecaries, who expend a large sum annually, with no other view than the promotion of botanical knowledge, more especially in the cultivation of curious and rare plants. Lectures are also given twice a week during the season, which are attended by more than two hundred students. Sir Hans Sloane continued a steady friend to this establishment, continually enriching it with scarce and curious plants. He likewise contributed largely towards the buildings and improvements of the garden; and it was principally owing to his generosity and exertions that they were so soon completed for public inspection. As a tribute of gratitude, the Company of Apothecaries employed the celebrated Rysbrach on a marble statue of their benefactor, which is placed near the middle of the garden. On the north side of the pedestal is a Latin inscription, recording Sir Hans Sloane's eminence as a physician, and his encouragement of botany; and on the south side, the following: They, Being sensible how necessary That branch of science is To the faithful discharging the duty Of their profession, With grateful hearts, And general consent, Ordered this Statue to be erected, In the year of our Lord 1733, Their common benefactor.* * Faulkner's Chelsea, p. 21. There is a full-length portrait of Sir Hans in the College of Physicians and in the Gold-headed Cane, to which we are indebted for some anecdotes; there is also an engraving of the statue in the Botanic Garden, and a view of the latter. VOL. V.-NO. XVII. B In 1727, Sir Hans Sloane succeeded Sir Isaac Newton in the presidency of the Royal Society, and was the first medical president of that learned body. Soon afterwards he presented to the Society one hundred guineas, and a bust of King Charles II., its founder, besides being mainly instrumental in procuring the endowment for Sir Godfrey Copley's annual gold medal. In this year, Sir Hans published the second volume of his Natural History of Jamaica, &c., just twenty years after the appearance of the first; and in the Preface to the former, he accounts for this long delay by enumerating the various articles which then formed his museum, and states that he had numbered and catalogued the whole of them himself, amounting to the immense quantity of nearly 40,000 articles, including 20,000 coins and medals, 2666 volumes of MSS., and 7,671 Greek and Latin medical authors,* without reckoning a great variety of other books ;† and all this was effected, it should be remembered, not in learned leisure, but at intervals snatched from the exercise of his profession, and from the hours usually devoted to sleep. During the greater part of the time employed in arranging and cataloguing his vast collections, Sir Hans was in constant attendance on the royal family, and his practice was, probably, as extensive as that of Sir Henry Halford or Sir Benjamin Brodie in the present day. From this period till 1740 he devoted a great part of his time to the fulfilment of the duties of the high offices which he held, to the enlargement of his museum, and to the "diffusion of useful knowledge:" not that sort of knowledge so ycleped in modern times-but to the promulgation of every discovery in the healing art which his wisdom and long experience considered beneficial in all those "ills which flesh is heir to." Many marine productions, also, hitherto neglected and despised as useless, were, through his exertions, rendered articles of commerce to those who "went down to the sea in ships, and beheld the wonders of the great deep." To these various occupations must be added that occasioned by the voluminous correspondence which he carried on, for a long series of years, with the learned and scientific in every part of the known world, and which are to be found among his other MSS. in the British Museum. These numerous friends and correspondents continually sup * Van der Linden's book, De Scriptis Medicis, published in 1687, considered the best medical bibliography of the day, enumerates only 3937; to these Sir Hans added 3734; a sufficient instance of his zeal and industry in promoting the objects of his profession. + Sloane's Jamaica, vol. ii.—Introduction, pp. ii., iii. plied him with all sorts of rare and curious objects; being fully persuaded that they would be not only acceptable, but that the receipt of them would be immediately acknowledged with gratitude. At the age of fourscore, Sir Hans Sloane resigned the presidency of the Royal Society, when he was publicly thanked for the eminent services he had rendered to the society, and a request was made that his name might remain enrolled among the members as long as he should live. But the most extraordinary part of the life of this eminent man is the removal, at the age of eighty-one, of his museum and library from Great Russel-street, Bloomsbury, (a place to which it was so soon destined to return), to his new habitation, the "Manor House," at Chelsea. The few gifted persons who arrive at this octogenarian distinction, we believe, think only of removing to the domus ultima; not so Sir Hans Sloane: with an energy not belonging to his years, he set about transporting this immense collection of books, MSS., and curiosities, to Chelsea. On the 12th of May, 1741, he commenced his residence there, and retired to to enjoy, in tranquillity, the remainder of a well-spent life. He did not, however, hermit-like, seek that solitude which excludes the blandishments of society-the only charm that, at this period of life, binds us to existence. Here, as he had done in London, he received the visits of persons of distinction, of learned foreigners, and even of the royal family, who sometimes did him that honour. An interesting account of one of these royal visits, in the year 1748, is given by a contemporary writer, and, as it affords the only record of the state of Sir Hans's museum at that time, we shall make no apology for presenting some portion of it to our readers. "Dr. Mortimer, secretary to the Royal Society, conducted the Prince and Princess of Wales into the room where Sir Hans was sitting, being ancient and infirm. The Prince took a chair, and sat down by the good old gentleman sometime, when he expressed the greatest esteem and value for him personally, and how much the learned world was obliged to him for having collected such a vast library of curious books, and such immense treasures of the valuable and instructive productions of nature and art. Sir Hans's house* forms a square of above one hundred feet each side, inclosing a court; and three front rooms had tables set along the middle, which were spread over with drawers filled with all sorts of precious stones in their * This house was built by King Henry VIII., and a print of it forms the frontispiece to Mr. Faulkner's History of Chelsea. It was pulled down soon after Sir Hans's death, and a row of new houses was standing upon the ancient site in the year 1763.-Biographia Britannica, art. Sloane. natural beds, or state as they are found in the earth. Here the most magnificent vessels of cornelian, onyx, sardonyx, and jasper, delighted the eye. When their royal highnesses had viewed one room, and went into another, the scene was shifted; for when they returned the same tables were covered, for a second course, with all sorts of jewels, polished and set after the modern fashion, or with engraved gems; for the third course, the tables were spread with gold and silver ores, with the most precious and remarkable ornaments used in the habits of man, from Siberia to the Cape of Good Hope, from Japan to Peru ; and with both ancient and modern coins, and medals in gold and silver, the lasting monuments of historical facts: as those of a Pope Gregory XIII., recording, on a silver medal, his blind zeal for religion, in perpetuating thereon the massacre of the protestants in France; Charles IX., the then reigning king in that country. Here may be seen the coins of a king of England crowned at Paris; a medal, representing France and Spain striving which should first pay their obeisance to Britannia; the happy deliverance of Britain by the arrival of King William; the glorious exploits of a Duke of Marlborough, and the happy arrival of the present illustrious royal family amongst us. as did "The gallery, one hundred and ten feet in length, presented a most surprising prospect; the most beautiful corals, crystals, and figured stones, and feathers of birds vying with gems; here the remains of the antediluvian world excited the awful idea of that great catastrophe, so many evident testimonies of the truth of Moses's history. Then a noble vista presented itself filled with books; among these many hundred volumes of dried plants; a room full of choice and valuable MSS.; the noble present sent by the French king to Sir Hans of his collection of paintings, medals, statues, palaces, &c., in twenty-five large atlas volumes, besides other things too many to mention here. Below stairs, some rooms are filled with the curious and venerable antiquities of Egypt, Greece, Etruria, Rome, Britain, and even America; others with large animals preserved in the skin, the great saloon lined, on every side, with bottles filled with spirits, containing various animals. The halls are adorned with the horns of divers creatures, and with weapons of different countries; among + This collection formed what is now called an Ethnographical Museum, comprising materials for the study of the customs and modes of life of the various branches of the human race; such as is to be found at St. Petersburgh, in Holland, and various other places, and such as we think might form a separate department, with a curator, in our own National Museum. which it appears that the Mayalese, and not our most Christian neighbours the French, had the honour of inventing that butcherly weapon, the bayonet. Fifty volumes in folio would scarce suffice to contain a detail of this immense museum, consisting of above two hundred thousand articles. The prince expressed the great pleasure it gave him to see so magnificent a collection in England, esteeming it an ornament to the nation; and expressed his sentiments how much it must conduce to the benefit of learning, and how great an honour will redound to Britain, to have it established for public use to the latest posterity.”* Although Sir Hans Sloane had now for some time declined practice as a physician, he never refused to give advice to any one, however high his rank, or humble his station in society. During his retirement, also, he continued to promulgate such medical discoveries as he deemed important; and did not, like many of his brethren, make a mystery of his profession. His encouragement of learned men, whether native or foreign, commands our admiration. Among the latter may be named Job Ben Solomon, son of the Mohammedan King of Banda, who, after having been sold as a slave, and suffered many reverses of fortune, found his way to England, where his talents, dignified air, and amenity of character procured him friends, and among the rest Sir Hans Sloane, who employed him for a considerable time in translating several Arabic MSS. His memory was so retentive that, it is said, he could repeat the whole of the Koran by heart. Sir Hans Sloane's patronage of artists is equally worthy of remark. He employed the celebrated natural history painter, George Edwards, for a great number of years, in drawing miniature figures of animals after nature, to increase his fine collection of drawings, on the same subject, by other masters. He also paid five guineas a leaf to M. Robert, a celebrated French artist, for drawings of plants, animals, shells, &c., which are considered to be among the richest and most accurate of any period. To those must be added two volumes on vellum, from the pencil of Madame Merian. During Sir Hans Sloane's retirement at Chelsea, George Edwards was accustomed to visit him every week, to divert him for an hour or two with the common news of the town, and with any particulars that might have happened amongst his acquaintance of the Royal Society, or other scientific persons, and seldom missed drinking coffee with him on a Saturday. The old baronet was so * Gentleman's Magazine, 1748, vol. xviii., p. 301, 2. |