LIFE OF SIR HANS SLOANE. 15 



with its garden and appurtenances, occupying in the whole an area 

 of seven acres and twenty perches of land, was ceded by the repre- 

 sentatives of the Montague family for the moderate sum of £10,000. 

 The necessary repairs (which, the house having stood long empty re- 

 quired, proved very expensive), were immediately proceeded upon ; and 

 the proper book-cases and cabinets having been completed, and the 

 collections removed thither, the museum was at length opened for 

 study and public inspection, January 15, 1759. The sum actually 

 netted by the profits of the lottery under the Act of Parliament was 

 £95,194 18s. 2d. From that time to the present it has been gradually 

 extended and increased by donations, bequests and purchases — but to 

 trace the progress of this increase belongs not to this work. It has 

 very recently been newly arranged and considerably improved in every 

 respect, and a very copious and interesting account of its present state 

 may be obtained from the twenty-eighth edition of the Synopsis of the 

 Contents of the British Museum, published in 1834. 



We have seen him born with a natural delicacy of constitution, 

 which nothing, it is probable, but rigid temperance and self-denial 

 could have sustained ; yet cheerfully submitting to these restraints, 

 while cultivating the abilities his Maker had bestowed upon him. We 

 have seen him carry with him the good wishes and recommendations 

 of his instructors, while pursuing his education in foreign countries ; 

 and, finally, brought into active life at home, under the auspices of 

 men of high talent and reputation, whose kindness and judgment the 

 result fully justified. His middle age was passed in active benevolence, 

 alleviating " the evils that flesh is heir to," among all classes, from 

 the sovereign on the throne, to the casual and dependent inmate of 

 an hospital, receiving honours from the one, and blessings from the 

 other ; a generous promoter of every institution calculated to enlarge 

 the mental powers of man or relieve his bodily infirmities ; and, at 

 length resigning his soul into the hands of the God who gave it with 

 humility and resignation, and with admirable consistency, so rarely 

 practiced, leaving direction that no sycophantic eulogy should be pro- 

 nounced over his remains, but that the occasion should be improved 

 by those salutary reflections which such a spectacle was calculated to 

 excite. Never were the vanity of all earthly blessings, the fragility 

 of all earthly possessions, however connected with science, literature, 

 and all that we are accustomed to consider as indicative of mental 



