85 
must therefore be regarded as the forerunner of our modern 
natural history and art museums. 
The common spiderwort or “ Wandering Jew” (Tradescantia 
virginiana) of our gardens, is named from the elder Tradescant, 
the name having been adopted by Linnaeus from the Flora 
Jenensis of Ruppins, published in 1718. The former name of the 
plant was Ephemerum virgimanum. 
John Tradescant, the son, author of the Musaeum, was born at 
Meopham, Kent, in 1608, and died in 1662. Like his father, he 
was a traveller, and succeeded his parent as gardener to the king 
and queen. In 1637, he visited that portion of America then 
known as Virginia, collecting plants, shells, and other specimens 
for the enrichment of the collection left to him by the will of his 
father. 
He became an intimate friend of Elias Ashmole, whose col- 
lections, presented to Oxford University, became known as the 
Ashmolean Museum. Ashmole’s dairy for 12 Dec., 1659 contains 
this entry: 
“Mr, Tredescant and his wife told me they had been long 
considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when 
they died, and at last had resolved to give it unto me.” ‘This is 
followed by the entry under date 14 Dec.: “ This Afternoon they 
gave their Scrivener Instructions to draw a Deed of Gift of the 
said Closet to me;” and, under the 16th, “5 Hor 30 Minutes past 
merid, Mr. Tredescant and His Wife sealed and delivered to me 
the Deed of Gift of all his Rarieties.”’ 
Tradescant’s will, however, taking no cognizance of this ‘ deed 
of gift,’ contains the following provision: 
“Item, I give, devize and bequeath my closet of Rarieties to 
my dearly beloued wife Hester Tredescant during her natural life, 
and after her decease I giue and bequeath the same to the Uni- 
versities of Oxford or Cambridge, to which of them shee shall 
think fitt at her decease.”’ 
Tradition states that after the deed of gift had been signed by 
both Tradescant and his wife at Tradescant’s home, whither Ash- 
mole had been invited to dine, and as he was departing with it, 
Mrs. Tredescant called him back and asked for the deed to make 
some slight change in it. Ashmole alleged that he never saw it 
again, and held that Mrs. Tredescant destroyed it. 
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