GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



gardens in this country that of Oxford, under Professor Dillenius, 

 and that at Chelsea. To those in control at Chelsea he often 

 refers in very commendatory terms ; and commendation from 

 Linnaeus was well worth having, for his researches and writings 

 effected a scientific revolution in all the botanic gardens of the 

 educated world. 



But Sir Hans Sloan, if lacking in discrimination in the matter 

 of Linnaeus, was not wanting in generosity towards the garden, 

 which he had sought by his gift to place on a self-supporting and 

 firm footing. 



I do not know for certain, but I feel sure that he visited it, not 

 only periodically and of necessity, in his official capacity as head 

 of two learned societies to which the garden had obligations 

 but privately, and at odd times, much as he might have visited 

 a pet protege or a child for whose welfare he was concerned. I 

 think that he often came, accompanied by a daughter ; occasionally 

 by way of the river-gate and the wharf, but more frequently, 

 after driving over from his residence in Bloomsbury, entering by 

 the curious old gateway in Swan Lane the same that, with its 

 formidable portcullis-sort of arrangement over the gate, and its 

 caged bell, appears in the sketch, and which is so quaintly 

 reminiscent of his day. Through this gateway everyone visiting 

 the garden, even now, has no choice but to enter. The 

 bell swings, and its sonorous iron tongue speaking of olden 

 times, we have a vision of a handsome but heavy coach waiting 

 outside ; of a coachman, portly and rubicund, seated majestically 

 on the box, and of a gorgeous lackey who lets down the steps 

 for the stately old gentleman with ponderous wig and long coat, 

 whose representation in stone we see on yonder statue, and the 

 elegant young lady whose silken gown is looped up over a hoop 

 of such immense dimensions that with difficulty she squeezes 

 through the door of the coach. The whalebone or steel cages 

 worn by women were so large in the reign of the second George, 

 that the architects of the day began to curve the balustrades of 

 their staircases outwards, in order to allow of the passage of their 

 fair wearers. 



The garden is a pleasant spot even now, when it is overlooked 

 from two sides. What must it have been in days when the swift 

 river washed its walls ; when, sitting in the cedar shade, one might 



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