86 
However that may be, in 1664, two years after Tradescant’s 
death, Ashmole preferred a bill in Chancery against Mrs. Tredes- 
cant* for (as stated in his diary) “the Rarieties her Husband 
had settled on me.” The Lord Chancellor rendered a verdict in 
favor of Ashmole, adjudging him to “ have and enjoy,” the rarie- 
ties which are catalogued in the Musaeum Tradescantianum, ex- 
cept that Mrs. Tredescant was to hold them in trust during her life. 
Ashmole built a large brick house closely adjoining Trades- 
cant’s, and his diary contains this entry for November 26, 1674: 
“Mrs. Tredescant being willing to deliver up the rarieties to me, 
I carried several of them to my house.” The remainder were 
transferred a few days later. It is interesting to note that, froma 
statement in the Compleat Angler (1: 62. London, 1836) Isaac 
Walton probably visited them at this time. ; 
In 1677 Ashmole offered to present the entire collection to 
Oxford University on condition that the university would provide 
a suitable building for it. The condition was met, the building 
being designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and the collection was 
installed there in 1683, being known from that day to this as the 
Ashmolean museum. ‘Thus, as Pultney says (Sketches, 1: 179), 
“the name of Tradescant was unjustly sunk in that of Ashmole.” 
While Tradescant’s collection appears to have been the first of 
its kind, assembled by a private individual, the Ashmolean museum 
was not the first public museum, for Sir William Henry Flower 
(Essays on Museums, London, 1898) is authority for the state- 
ment that the earliest known museum formed by a society of 
individuals was that of the Royal Society in Crane Court, of which 
an illustrated catalog was published by Dr. Grew in 1681. 
It has been asserted that the Musaeum Tradescantianum was 
printed before 1664, the date of its publication. The basis of this 
assertion is the following statement in the preface: “ About three 
years agoe, (by the perswasion of some friends) I was resolved to 
take a Catalogue of those Rarities and Curtosities which my 
Father had scedulously collected, and my self with continued dili- 
gence have augmented, & hitherto preserved together.” 
It seems clear, however, that this statment refers only to the 
time when the author began the preparation of his manuscript, 
— 
* The name has a variant spelling. 
