32 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
a wealthy apothecary, and drew up a curious code 
of instructions for preserving animals and plants, 
which he gave to captains of ships, and other per- 
sons. These formulas, as may be supposed, were 
very rude, yet they contributed to fill the worthy 
apothecary’s museum with a variety of new and 
curious objects; which he had engraved, without 
the least regard to order, and then published. 
Albin, also, who seems to have been a miniature 
painter, published in 1731 a quarto volume of 100 
copper-plates, representing English lepidoptera in 
their different stages. As a work of art, this was, 
for the period, a very splendid undertaking ; and, 
although devoid of any science, it must have 
materially advanced the cultivation of entomology. 
From the same hand originated, between 1731 and 
1738, three volumes upon birds, and one upon 
British spiders ; yet not of equal merit. We pass 
over the works of Bradley, Fermin, Klein, Knorr, 
Renard, Brown, and others of inferior note. But 
we may pause at the name of Sir Hans Sloane, then 
the most eminent patron of natural history in 
Britain; and holding the high professional station 
of court physician. A greater lover of natural 
history could not exist; for he expended a princely 
fortune in forming that museum and library which 
was ultimately purchased by the government, and 
made the foundation of the present national collec- 
tion. Sloane, however, unlike the accomplished 
Willughby, was rather an amateur than a master, 
and his Natural History of Jamaica*, &c., although 
* A Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, 
St. Christopher’s, and Jamaica, with the Natural History, &c., 
by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. 2 vols. folio. London, 1728. 
