MEMOIR OF SIR HANS SLOANE, BART. 11 



plied him with all sorts of rare and curious objects ; being fully per- 

 suaded 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 emi- 

 nent 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 re- 

 moving to the domus ultima; not so Sir Hans Sloane : with an ener- 

 gy 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 in- 

 teresting 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. u 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 oj Chelsea. It was pulled down soon 

 after Sir Hans's death, and a row of new houses was standing upon the an- 

 cient site in the year 1763. — Biographia Britannica, art. Sloane. 



