8 LIFE OF SIR HANS SLOANE. 



from so arduous an honour, in 1740, the Society entreated his permission, 

 as a mark of respect for his eminent services, that they might continue 

 his name on the list of their council as long as he should live. 



Of his numerous charities it is difficult to give an idea. He was 

 a governor in most of the London hospitals — a liberal benefactor to 

 them during his life, and left them considerable legacies at his death. 

 To the poor he was uniformly a considerate and attentive friend, assist- 

 ing them with money, and prescribing for them in sickness, even 

 after he had retired from public life to his house at Chelsea. To 

 foreigners he was extremely courteous ; and kept an open table once 

 a-week for his learned friends, particularly the members of the Royal 

 Society. 



But it is his Museum with which we have more to do. From a 

 very early period he appears to have commenced forming it. His col- 

 lections during his West Indian voyage were the nucleus. The earliest 

 notice of it occurs in Evelyn's Diary, who, under the date of April 16, 

 1691, mentions — " I went to see Dr. Sloane's curiosities, being a uni- 

 versal collection of the natural productions of Jamaica, consisting of 

 plants, fruits, corals, minerals, stones, earth, shells, animals, insects, &c, 

 selected with great judgment; several folios of dried plants; and one 

 which had about eighty-seven sorts of ferns, and another of grapes ; the 

 Jamaica pepper, in branch, leaves, flower, fruit, &c. This collection, with 

 his journal and other philosophical discourses and observations, is in- 

 deed very copious and extraordinary, sufficient to furnish a history of 

 that island, to which I encouraged him. It received its first and per- 

 haps principal increase, however, in 1702, upon the death of his friend 

 Mr. Courten, who we have seen bequeathed his extensive and valuable 

 museum to Sir Hans, upon condition of his paying certain legacies 

 specified in his last will. What was the precise state or value of this 

 accession we have no means of knowing, as there exists no separate 

 catalogue of its contents. The Biographical Dictionary, indeed, in- 

 forms us that there arc MS. catalogues which, swelled with short his- 

 tories and accounts of their contents, amount in all to thirty-eight 

 volumes in folio, and eighl volumes in quarto. But these catalogues 

 were stated, at the time of Sloane's death, to be those of the whole 

 Museum as then existing ; and we know that, from many other 

 sources, Sir Hans obtained augmentations ; and the account he him- 

 self gives of it after the purchase of Petiver's collections, compared 



