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 
Linnzus 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 Linnzus, 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 protégé 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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