LIFE OF SIR HANS SLOANE. 11 



Then a uoble vista presented itself through several rooms filled 

 with books and many hundred volumes of dried plants ; full of choice 

 and valuable manuscripts ; the noble present sent by the French king 

 to Sir Hans, being prints of his collection of paintings, medals, statues, 

 palaces, &c, in twenty-five large atlas volumes, besides other valuable 

 things too numerous to mention here. 



Below stairs, some rooms were filled with curious remains of 

 antiquities, from 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 were adorned with the horns of various creatures, as of 

 the double-horned rhinoceros of Africa, and deer's horns from Ireland, 

 nine feet wide, and with weapons of different countries, amoug which 

 it appears that the Mangalese, and not our most Christian neighbours, 

 the French, had the honour of inventing that butcherly weapon — the 

 bayonet. Fifty volumes in folio would scarcely suffice to contain a 

 detail of this immense museum, consisting of above two hundred thou- 

 sand articles. 



Their Royal Highnesses were not wanting in expressions of their 

 satisfaction at seeing a collection which surpassed all the notions or 

 ideas they had formed of it, from even the most favourable accounts. 

 On this occasion the Prince showed his great reading and happy 

 memory ; for in such a multiplicity and such a variety of the produc- 

 tions of Nature and Art, upon anything being shown to him that he 

 had seen before, he was ready in recollecting having read of it ; and 

 upon viewing the ancient and modern medals, he made so many judi- 

 cious remarks, that he appeared to be a perfect master of history and 

 chronology. He expressed the great pleasure it gave him to see so 

 magnificent a collection in England, esteeming it an ornament to the 

 uation, and expressed his fixed sentiments, how much it must conduce 

 to the benefit of learning, and how great an honour will redound to 

 Britain, to have such a grand repository established for public use to 

 the latest posterity. 



Amidst these tranquil occupations, he attained an age far beyond 

 the period assigned by the Psalmist to those very few, " who, by reason 

 of their strength," exceed, though " in labour and sorrow," man's allot- 

 ted portion of existence, and this, without these painful concomitants, 



