14 MEMOIR OP SIR HANS SLOANE, BART. 



infirm as to be wholly confined to his house, except sometimes, 

 though rarely, taking a little air in his garden, in a wheeled chair ; 

 and this confinement made him very desirous to see any of his old 

 acquaintance to amuse him. Knowing that the librarian did not 

 abound in the gifts of fortune, Sir Hans was strictly careful that 

 Edwards should be at no expense in his journeys from London to 

 Chelsea; and the good old man would calculate what the cost of 

 coach-hire, waterage, or any other little charges attending on his 

 journeys backwards and forwards would amount to, and, observing 

 as much delicacy as possible, would oblige him annually to accept of 

 it. George Edwards, who died at the age of eighty, was elected 

 librarian of the College of Physicians in the year 17$3, through the 

 influence of Sir Hans Sloane, who continued, through life, his great 

 patron. Edwards was an extraordinary man : when young, he had 

 been intended for trade ; but having an opportunity to travel, he 

 much improved himself, and when, on his return from abroad, he 

 was lucky enough to obtain the leisure which his office afforded 

 him, he devoted himself to the study of natural history, and became 

 by great assiduity, a distinguished ornithologist. During thirty- 

 six years, he was librarian to the College, and in that period was 

 chosen Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and by the 

 first of these learned bodies was rewarded with the Copley medal, 

 of which he was so deservedly proud as to have it engraved in 

 the title-page of the first volume of his work. 



Hactetius hcec. Hitherto the extreme temperance of Sir Hans 

 Sloane had preserved him from experiencing much inconvenience 

 from the infirmities of old age ; but in his ninetieth year, it is re- 

 corded of him, that he began to complain of pains, and to be sensible 

 of a general decay. He was often heard to say, " that the approach 

 of death brought no terrors with it ; that he had long expected the 

 stroke, and was prepared to receive it whenever the Great Author 

 of his being should think fit." The long-expected moment at 

 length arrived. With this highly-talented man and sincere chris- 

 tian, there were none of those " dire tossings" and u deep groans" 

 he must have so often witnessed in the hospitals over which he pre- 

 sided, where 



" Despair 

 Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch ; 

 And over them, triumphant Death his dart 

 Shook, but delayed to strike." 



None of these horrors were present at the death- bed of our benevo- 



