THE CHELSEA ‘‘ PHYSICKE GARDEN ” 
commonly met with in our cornfields, and Field quotes from the 
“London Encyclopedia 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 to 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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