635 



SLINGELANDT, PETER VAN. 



SMEATON, JOHN. 



536 



elegant. The best edition is that by J. G. Bohm, with notes and addi- 

 tions by C. C. Am-Ende, Frankfurt, 1785-86. The work had no sooner 

 appeared than it was translated into German, Italian, and French ; and 

 into English in 1560 by John Daws. In 1689 another translation by 

 G. liohiin was published in English, with & continuation to the end 

 of the Council of Trent in 1563. Sleidan also published in 1556 ' De 

 Quatuor Sum mis Imperils, Babylonico, Persico, Grseeo, et Romano, 

 Libri Tres,' which has gone through many editions, been continued by 

 various hands, and translated. His other works were, an abridgment 

 of Froissart's Chronicles in Latin ; a translation of the Memoirs of 

 Philip de Comines into the same language; 'Summa Doctrinae Platonis 

 de Repuhlica et de Legibus,' printed in 1548 ; and his ' Opuscula,' which 

 were published in 1608. 



SLINGELANDT, PETER VAN, was born at Leyden in 1640, and 

 became a pupil of Gerard Douw. He imitated very successfully the 

 highly finished style of his master, whom in this respect he frequently 

 equalled. His colouring is perfectly true to nature, and his chiar'os- 

 curo admirable. Various instances are recorded of his extreme 

 patience in finishing his works. It is related by Houbraken, that be 

 was employed three years, without intermission, on a small picture 

 containing portraits of the family of Meerman, and that he devoted 

 a whole month to the finishing of a ruff. When he introduced a dog, 

 a cat, or a mouse, which he often did, he seemed to have made a 

 point of representing every single Lair. It was to be regretted that 

 with all this labour his design and composition are in general indiffer- 

 ent, and far inferior in correctness and expression to his master. His 

 works are however highly valued, as among the best of the Flemish 

 school, and are often mistaken for those of Mieris and Gerard Douw. 

 Very few of this artist's performances are in the galleries of England : 

 one is in Sir Robert Peel's collection ; one in the Bridgewater gallery, 

 distinguished, says Dr. Waagen, by the incredible minuteness of detail 

 in the execution, io which it even exceeds Gerard Douw, though far 

 inferior to him in other respects; two are in the -private collection 

 of George IV., both of which have been ascribed to G. Douw, and 

 sold as his; and one in the collection of the Marquis of Bute, at 

 Luton House. Slingelandt died in 1691, aged fifty-one. 



SLOANE, SIR HANS, BART., was born at Killileagh, in county 

 Down, on the 16th of April 1660. Though a native of Ireland, he 

 was of Scotch extraction, his father Alexander Sloane having been 

 the head of a colony of Scots whom James I. settled in Ulster. 



While young his health was delicate, and from his sixteenth to his 

 nineteenth year he suffered from spitting of blood. It was however 

 in his youth, and while living at home, that he imbibed a taste for 

 those pursuits in the cultivation of which he afterwards attained such 

 celebrity. As soon as his health would permit, he repaired to 

 London, and during four years which he spent in the metropolis 

 devoted himself to the study of medicine and the collateral sciences. 

 Strafforth, a pupil of the celebrated Stahl, was his instructor in 

 chemistry, and his fondness for botany brought him acquainted with 

 Ray and Robert Boyle. In 1683 he set out for Paris, and during his 

 stay there attended the anatomical lectures ef Duverney and those on 

 botany by Tournefort. On his departure for Montpellier he was 

 furnished by Tournefort with introductions to all the celebrated men 

 at that university. Here he passed a year, spending much of his 

 time in collecting plants, and, after having travelled through Languedoc 

 with the same purpose, returned to London late in the year 1684. 



He gave many of the plants and seeds which he had collected to 

 Ray, who described them, and acknowledged his obligations to the 

 donor in his ' Historia Plantarum.' He now settled in London, and 

 the young physician found in the great Sydenham a most valuable 

 friend, who did all in his power to introduce him to practice. In 

 1685 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and a fellow of 

 the College of Physicians, in April 1687. His attention had been 

 excited when young by the descriptions of the wonderful productions 

 of tropical climates, and the offer of the appointment of physician to 

 the Duke of Albemarle, who was going out as governor to Jamaica, 

 afforded him an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity. He accord- 

 ingly set sail with the duke on September 12, 1687, and after touching 

 at many of the Caribbee islands, reached Port Royal on the 19th of 

 December in the same year. The death of the duke soon after his 

 iirrival diminished Sloane's resources, and compelled him to hasten 

 his return, though he did not leave Jamaica till he had formed in 

 that and the neighbouring islands an immense collection of plants. 

 He arrived in England on the 29th of May 1089, after a residence 

 in Jamaica of only fifteen months. 



The plants which he brought with him amounted to 800 species. 

 Of these he gave his friend Mr. Courten whatever he wanted to com- 

 plete his collection, and the remainder, with other objects of natural 

 history, formed the nucleus of his museum. Success too attended 

 him in practice. He was appointed physician to Christ's Hospital in 

 1694, and held the office for thirty years ; and in 1695 he married a 

 lady of considerable wealth, Elizabeth, daughter of Alderman Langley, 

 by whom he had four children, two of whom died young, while two 

 daughters survived their parents, and carried their wealth to the 

 noble families of Stanley aud Cadogan. 



In 1693 he was chosen secretary to the Royal Society, aud in 1762 

 was elected one of the vice-presidents. The Academy of Sciences in 

 Paris had conferred on him the title of a foreign associate in 1708. 



George I. created him a baronet in 1716, and appointed him physician- 

 general to the forces. He was elected president of the College of 

 Physicians in 1719, and held the office till 1735. In 1727 he was 

 appointed physician to the king, and in the same year had the honour 

 of succeeding Newton in the president's chair of the Royal Society. 

 He had purchased an estate at Chelsea in 1720, and retired thither in 

 1740, when eighty years old. His time was now passed in entertaining 

 scientific men, and in examining the treasures he had collected. He 

 died, after a short illness, on the llth of January 1753, in the ninety- 

 third year of his age. 



Sir Hans Sloane was a man of a benevolent and generous disposition, 

 and active in all schemes for doing good. During the thirty years that 

 he held the appointment of physician to Christ's Hospital he never 

 kept his salary, but always devoted it to charitable purposes. He was 

 very active in establishing the dispensary set on foot by the College of 

 Physicians for providing the poor with medical attendance and medi- 

 cines gratuitously, the opposition to which on the part of the apothe- 

 caries called forth Garth's talent for satire ; but he was so ready to 

 banish the memory of a quarrel, that when he purchased his Chelsea 

 estate in 1720, he presented the Apothecaries' Company with the free- 

 hold of their botanic garden. He did all in his power to promote the 

 formation of the colony in Georgia in 1732, and was one of the 

 founders of the Foundling Hospital, and drew up the plans for the 

 management of the children. 



Sir Hans Sloane directed that at his death his museum should be 

 offered to the nation for 20,000., a sum which he says, in a codicil to 

 his will, dated July 20, 1749, did not amount to a fourth part of its 

 real value. This collection, in the purchase of which by government 

 the British Museum originated, was not altogether accumulated by 

 Sir Hans Sloane, but had been greatly increased by the bequest, in 

 1702, of the museum of his friend Mr. Courten. At the time of his 

 death Sir H. Sloane's cabinet contained 200 volumes of dried plants, 

 and 30,600 other specimens of objects of natural history, besides a 

 library of 50,000 volumes and 356(5 manuscripts. His fame however 

 does not rest merely on his collection : he contributed many papers 

 to the ' Philosophical Transactions.' Before he was appointed secre- 

 tary to the Royal Society, the publication of these Transactions had 

 been suspended for six years; he resumed their publication, and con- 

 tinued to superintend it till 1712. He likewise wrote a pamphlet on 

 sore eyes, which had considerable repute for many years. But his 

 great work was the ' Natural History of Jamaica,' which appeared hi 

 2 vols. fol., with many plates, of which the first volume was published 

 in 1707, and the second twenty years after. The first volume contains 

 an introduction comprising a description of the island, its climate, 

 products, and the diseases of its inhabitants, followed by an account 

 of the plants indigenous there and in other of the West India Islands: 

 the trees and animals are described in the second volume. He men- 

 tions in his preface that the whole undertaking had been submitted 

 to Ray, and met with his approval, though it did not receive any 

 emendations from him. A small Latin catalogue of the plants of 

 Jamaica had been published by him in 1696, and serves as a sort of 

 index to the large work. Notwithstanding his diligence in studying 

 natural history, Sir H. Sloane appears not to have fully appreciated 

 the benefits of scientific arrangement ; and he contents himself hi his 

 writings with referring plants to genera and species already known, aud 

 made no attempt to improve the defective classification of that day. 



SMART, CHRISTOPHER, was born at Shepburne in Kent, on the 

 llth of April 1722. He was educated at Durham and Maid stone 

 schools, and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he was sent on the 

 30th of October 1739. Here he distinguished himself by his classical 

 attainments; he was elected Fellow of Pembroke Hall, July 3, 1745. 

 He gained the Seatonian prize for five successive years : the subjects 

 of the prize poems were respectively, the Eternity, the Immensity, 

 the Omniscience, the Power, and the Goodness of the Supreme Being. 

 In 1753 he quitted Cambridge on his marriage with Miss Ann Maria 

 Carman, and afterwards resided in London, endeavouring to make a 

 livelihood by trifling literary undertakings. He became engaged in an 

 altercation with Sir John Hill, who criticised his poems ; and Smart 

 in revenge published a satire called the ' Hilliad.' 



In 1754, in consequence of pecuniary embarrassment aud other 

 mortifications, he became deranged, and continued in this condition, 

 with intervals more or less lasting of sanity, till his death, on the 18th 

 of May 1770, in the rules of the King's Bench, where he had been 

 confined in his latter years. Smait translated the Psalms, PLacdrus, 

 and Horace into prose ; aud in 1752 published a small collection of 

 poems, to which he made subsequent additions. His productions have 

 sunk into deserved oblivion. Ho seems to have been a weak improvi- 

 dent man, not destitute of good qualities, such as gaiued the favour of 

 several of the nobility, and the friendship of Garrick and Johnson, 

 the latter of whom has written an account of him. His poems were 

 printed in 1791. 



SMEATON, JOHN, was born, according to most authorities, on 

 the 28th of May, 1724, at Austhrope, near Leeds, in a house built by 

 his grandfather, and long afterwards inhabited by his family. His 

 father was an attorney, and brought him up with a view to the legal 

 profession. Our information respecting the domestic history of 

 Smeaton is exceedingly scanty ; it amounts to little more than that he 

 very early displayed a taste for mechanical pursuits ; delighting, it is 



