THOMAS MARTYN AND THE UNIVERSAL CONCHOLOGIST. 



By William Healey Dall, 



(hiraior, Dirini/in of MnIIusks. 



The career of Thomas Martyn, the artist publisher of the most 

 beautiful iconography of shells ever prepared, the medalist of a 

 po})e and four kings, is little known. He has been confused with a 

 distinguished cotemporary botanist of the same name in some bibli- 

 ographies, and the facts now discoverable about his life, and even his 

 publications, are disappointingh" scant}". In Nichols' Literaiy Anec- 

 dotes (VIII, p. -132) he is styled ''the entouiologist, a native of Cov- 

 entry.'' In the Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (London, 

 lSi5-l<)) he is described as "an ingenious naturalist in London;*' 

 while Dryander, in his catalogue of the library of Sir Joseph Banks 

 (V, p. 3-iT, 1800), has the brief note, '"'"mercator rerum naturalium 

 Londiiii." The notice in the Dictionary of National Biography 

 (XXXVI, p. 321, 181)3) more appropriately refers to him as a "natu- 

 ral history draughtsman and pamphleteer," flourishing between 1760 

 and 1816. No clue to the dates of his birth and death has been found, 

 but it appears to be certain that he was a resident of London from 

 1781 to 1816, living successively at 26 King street, Covent Garden, 16 

 and 12 Great Marlborough street, and 62 Great Russell street. Blooms- 

 bury. His name appears on the list of sul)scribers to the publication 

 of Da Costa's British Conchology in 1778. Maton and Rackett, in their 

 Historical Account of Testaceological Writers (1801), speak of him 

 as a "dealer," which is also implied by DiTander's note above cited; 

 but if he dealt in an3rthing- except his publications these two references 

 are the only traces of it. His name does not appear in a long series 

 of London business and post-ofhce directories of the period which I 

 have consulted. He was evidentl}/^ a man of education, the language 

 of his text is correct, he knew French, some Latin, and possibly some 

 Greek (there is a Greek subtitle on his frontispiece); he tells us that 

 his work had received the appro])ati()n "of many noble and learned 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXIX— No. 1425. 



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