260 Britain's Heritage of Science 



that not certain." Hookewas a man of amazing versatility, 

 very self-confident, attacking problems in all branches of 

 science, greatly aiding their advance, but avid of fame. 



" In person but despicable, being crooked and low in 



stature, and as he grew older more and more deformed. 



He was always very pale and lean and latterly nothing 



but skin and bone." 



His book " Micrographia " is the record of what a modern 

 schoolboy newly introduced to the microscope would write 

 down. Yet he was undoubtedly, although not a lovable 

 character, the best " mechanic of his age." 1 (See also p. 55.) 



John Tradescant ( ? ?1637) is by some believed to have 



been a Dutchman, but his name is an English name, and he 

 seems from an early age to have owned land in Essex, a most 

 English county. One of his earliest works was entitled : 

 " A voiag of ambasad ondertaken by the Right honourabl 

 Sr Dudlie Digges in the year 1618," which is a narrative of 

 a voyage round the North Cape to Archangel, where they 

 arrived at the neighbouring monastery of St. Nicholas on 

 the 16th July 1618, when Tradescant immediately began 

 botanizing, collecting, and ultimately sending a number of 

 northern plants to various friends abroad and making notes 

 upon some twenty-four wild species. This was the first 

 account published of the plants of Russia. In 1620 he 

 voyaged south instead of north, having joined the expedi- 

 tion of Mansell and Sir Samuel Argall against the Corsairs 

 of Algiers, and amongst other rarities brought back by him 

 was the Algerian apricot. In 1625 he was in the service of 

 the Duke of Buckingham, and writes to an agent in Virginia 

 that it was the Duke's wish that he should " deal with all 

 merchants from all places, but especially from Virginia, 

 Bermudas, Newfoundland, Guinea, Binney, the Amazon, 

 and the East Indies, for all manner of rare beasts, fowls, 

 and birds, shells, furs, and stones." On the death of the 

 Duke, Tradescant became gardener to the King and Queen, 

 and it is suggested that it was about this time that he 

 established his physic garden and museum at South Lam- 

 beth. The physic garden was one of the first established 

 in our kingdom, and Pulteney recalls that Tradescant 



1 Waller's " Life of Hooke," 1705. 



