ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 2$ 



of the Tradescants. 2 * 5 John Tradescant, the elder, who travelled 

 as a botanist, and was gardener to Queen Henrietta Maria, is 

 described by an old writer as " a painful industrious searcher, 

 and lover of all Nature's varieties," but his tastes were not con- 

 fined to natural history, and the museum which he formed at 

 Lambeth became an omnium gatherum. The collections were 

 augmented by his son John Tradescant, who in 1656 published 

 a catalogue of his " Rarities," which he described as being " more 

 ■for variety than any one place known in Europe could afford. " 27 

 The museum, known as " Tradescant's Ark," became one of the 

 curiosities of the age — " a world of wonders in one closet shut." 

 Prof. Newton, of Cambridge, has referred to the two Tradescants 

 as " the parents of British Musaeology," 28 and as such they 

 command our profound homage. 



It appears that the second Tradescant made over his " Closet 

 of Curiosities" by deed of gift, in 1659, to his friend Elias 

 Ashmole, but by a will of later date bequeathed the collection to 

 his wife, for her life. This led, unfortunately, but not unnaturally, 

 to litigation. After a while, however, the museum passed to 

 Ashmole, whose name it afterwards bore. 



Ashmole, who thus became possessed of the extensive collec- 

 tions of the Tradescants, was a learned man of versatile tastes, 

 leaning especially towards heraldry, astrology, and alchemy. A 

 liking for botany seems to have attracted him to Tradescant, 

 with whom at one time he lodged. On acquiring the " Ark,'' he 

 built for its reception a house in South Lambeth, adjoining that 

 previously occupied by Tradescant. After retaining the collection 

 for some years, and much enriching it, he offered to present it to 

 the University of Oxford, provided that a suitable building were 

 erected for its reception. This condition having been accepted, 

 the " Ashmolean Museum " was built from plans, said to be by Sir 

 Christopher Wren ; and in 1682, twenty years after the death 

 of the younger Tradescant, the collection was removed in twelve 

 wagons from Lambeth to Oxford. Dr. Plot, the historian of 

 Oxfordshire and Staffordshire, became the first curator. In an 

 old essay on the " History of Museums," read before the 



26 Excellent biographies of the Tradescants, by Prof. G. S. Boulger, will be found in the 



Dictionary of National Biography. 



27 Musceum Tradescantianum ; or a Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, neer 



(sic) London." By John Tradescant. London : 1656. 



28 " Notes on some old Museums." By Alfred Newton, M.A., V.P.R.S. Rep. Museums 



Assoc, Cambridge Meeting, 1891, p. 32. 



