THE CHELSEA " PHYSIGKE GARDEN " 



commonly met with in our cornfields, and Field quotes from the 

 " London Encyclopaedia of Plants," which speaks of it as "a little 

 insignificant weed by no means worthy to be associated with the 

 memory of so celebrated a man." His garden at Eltham, in Kent, 

 became famous. James Sherard's elder brother, William, also 

 a distinguished botanist, endowed the professorship of botany at 

 Oxford, but presented all his books on botany and natural history, 

 and all his drawings and dried plants, to the Library of the Physic 

 Garden at Chelsea. 



William Curtis, who founded the Botanical Magazine, that 

 on his death was continued by Dr. Sims, and ultimately by Sir 

 William Hooker, merits special notice. He was born in 1746, 

 and was the son of a tanner of Alton, in Hampshire, who was a 

 member of the Society of Friends. Apprenticed to his grand- 

 father, an apothecary in the same town, chance made him acquainted 

 with an ostler from the Crown Inn, named Lagg. This man, by 

 careful study of the writings of Gerarde, the author of the Herbal 

 earlier spoken of, and of Parkinson, the herbalist, had b come 

 possessed of a considerable knowledge of plants, and he inspired 

 young Curtis with the ambition tb become a botanist. Coming to 

 London, Curtis by and by succeeded to the apothecary's practice 

 of a member of the Society of Friends, but his passion for botany 

 absorbed too much of his time to allow him to practise extensively. 

 Having been previously elected a member of the Apothecaries' 

 Society, he was, in 1773, appointed Demonstrator at Chelsea. 

 Four years later he began a great work, in which he had intended 

 to treat of every plant growing within ten miles of London ; but 

 the sale was so limited that Curtis abandoned^the project. On the 

 other hand the success of the Botanical Magazine was speedily 

 assured. 



It was in 1820 that Thomas Wheeler resigned the Demonstrator- 

 ship of Botany, and the office of Prefectus Horti, which he had 

 held for forty-two years. He was born in 1754, and educated 

 at St. Paul's School, celebrated even then for its classical teaching. 

 His virtues and his eccentricities have kept his memory green in 

 the annals of the Apothecaries' Society. The members of that 

 body were certainly not prone to change, as they were to longevity, 

 and when Mr. Wheeler gave up active and regular duties, he still 

 continued to accompany the Herborizing excursions until they 



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