SLOANE. 



30,600. His tafte or collefting was followed by many 

 perfons, nor fliould his humble imitator, Mr. Salter of Chel- 

 fea, the founder of the well-known Don Saltero's cofFee- 

 houfe, be altogether defpifed. Who can anfwer for the 

 tafte or curiofity that may have been awakened by this humble 

 popular mufeum, or the purfuits and difcoveries to which it 

 may have led ? The writer of this is not alhamed to ac- 

 knowledge his own obligations to it at a very early period. 

 The difcoveries of Sloane in the Welt Indies were moreover 

 ufeful, in exciting coUeftors of living plants to enrich their 

 gardens from that novel and fertile fource, by v,^hich all the 

 iiot-houfes in Europe profited. Hence the French were led 

 to fend out Plumier, fee that article ; and though at war 

 with England in the year 1708, that nation was generous 

 enoutrh to admit the fubjedl of our memoir, with the per- 

 miffion of queen Anne, as one of the eight foreign members 

 of tlie Jcademie dts Sciences. His honours and appoint- 

 ments at home were rapidly increafing. He was confulted 

 by the royal family, and created a baronet by kmg George I. 

 This rank, it is faid, had never before been conferred on a 

 phyfician ; though fuch an application of it has fince been 

 frequent ; as being eafier to the giver, and more advan- 

 tageous to the receiver, than more folid, but lefs brilliant, 

 rewards for court fervice. Sir Hans became phylician- 

 general to the army, and in 17 19 was eledted prefident of 

 the College of Phyficians, which Itation he held for fixtcen 

 years ; but all his other honours fade before that of the prefi- 

 dency of the Royal Society, conferred upon him, on the death 

 of fir Ifaac Newton, in 1727. He refigned the latter, at the 

 age of fourfcore, in 1 740, when he retired to the manoi-houfe 

 of Chelfea, which manor he had purchafed about the year 

 1720. Here he received the vifits of his fcientific and other 

 friends, patronized the ingenious, and affilted the diftrefl'ed. 

 The worthy George Edwards record?, in his Ed'ays en 

 Natural Hiftory, that he feldom milled drinking coffee 

 with " the good fir Hans Sloane" on a Saturday, during 

 his retirement of about fourteen years at Chelfea. " He 

 ■was fo infirm as to be wholly confined to his houfe, except 

 fometimes, though rarely, taking a little air, in his garden, 

 in a wheeled chair." Edwards unexpeftedly found him in 

 the agonies of death, on the loth of January, 1753, N.S. 

 at four in the afternoon. He expired at four the next 

 morning, in the 92d year of his age, and was buried, along 

 with his lady, in a vault, at the fouth-ealt corner of Chelfea 

 church-yard, where a handfome, and very confpicuous, mo- 

 nument to his memory ftill exifts. His epitaph relates that 

 he died " without the lead pain of body, and with a 

 confcious ferenity of mind." Edwards fays, " I continued 

 with him later than any one of his relations, but was 

 obliged to retire, his laft agonies being beyond what I 

 could bear ; though under his pain and weaknefs of body, 

 he feemed to retain a great firmnefs of mind, and refigna- 

 tion to the will of God." Thefe accounts may not be 

 totally irreconcileable. The convulfions of death are 

 " agonies" probably in appearance more than reality ; and 

 it is confolatory to fee a well-direfted mind, even in ordinary 

 cafes, generally fupeiior to them, in a remarkable manner, 

 Sloane was, in every refpedl, prepared to meet them. 



The perfon of fir Hans Sloane was tall and handfome ; 

 his manners eafy, polite and cheerful. He delighted in ex- 

 hibiting and explaining to llrangers, and efpecially fo- 

 reigners, whatever he pofTefled, and is faid to have kept an 

 open table once a-week, for his friends, particularly fuch 

 as belonged to the Royal Society. That his reception of 

 the great Linnaeus was not peculiarly flattering, has often 

 been mentioned with regret ; nor can we account for it 

 otherwife, than by recoUefting that he was not fufficiently 



gifted with the talifmanic power of genius, by which kin- 

 dred minds difcover each other, through every difguife of 

 rank, or external appearance. But the principal obftacle 

 to the free intercourfe of thefe diftinguillied men arofe, per- 

 haps, from the want of a common language. Linnaeus 

 could fpeak nothing but Latin, and that with the foreign 

 accent. He was moreover, at this time, full of thofe novel 

 ideas of botanical philofophy, by which he fubfequently 

 gave laws to the learned world. Boerhaave, who recom- 

 mended him with enthufiafm to Sloane, could appreciate 

 thefe ; but to the latter, as at firft fight to Dillenius, they 

 promifed nothing but confufion and inconvenience ; and 

 though the Oxford profeflor foon looked further into their 

 merits ; the opulent patron and colledfor, who had rifen to 

 eminence by his own means, felt no inclination to go to 

 fchool to a poor Swcdifii ftudent, hardly fuperior in his 

 eyes to a working gardener. Few men can be ferviceable 

 in many different ways. The merits of fir Hans Sloane 

 were traufceudant in his own line. He neglefted no means, 

 that appeared to him eligible, for promoting literature or 

 fcience. On purcliafing his great ellate at Chelfea, he pre- 

 fented the Apothecaries' company with the fee fimple of 

 the garden which they had already made there, on a con- 

 dition, equally beneficial to their fame and to fcience, that 

 it fiiould for ever continue a botanic garden. " He was 

 governor," fays Dr. Pulteney, " of almoft every hofpital 

 in London ; and to each, after having given an hundred 

 pounds in his life-time, he left a more confiderable legacy 

 at his death. He was ever a benefaflor to the poor, who 

 felt the confequences of his death feverely. He was zealous 

 in promoting the eftabhfhment of the colony of Georgia, iu 

 1732; and formed, himfelf, the plan for bringing up the 

 children in the Foundling; Hofpital, iu 1739." 



Nor was the pen of this aftive philofopher idle, amid his 

 other occupations. To particularize even the titles of his 

 papers, printed by the Royal Society, amounting to 35, 

 would lead us too far. However curious and uleful the 

 contents of moll of the rell may be, the lall in the lift, on 

 Inoculation, vol. 49. ji6, is pre-eminently important, as re- 

 cording the introduttion of that practice into England, and 

 difplaying the candour, as well as good fenfe, of the writer, 

 in every thing relative to the fubjedl. 



It remains for us only to mention the eftabliftiment of the 

 Britifh Mufeum, for which the nation is entirely obhged to 

 fir Hans Sloane. He bequeathed it to the pubhc, on con- 

 dition of a payment, to his heirs, of 20,000 pounds ; a 

 fum faid barely to equal the intrinfic value of the precious 

 metals and gems, of the medals and mineral fpecimens. 

 Befides the abundance of natural and artificial curiofities, 

 his library, amounting to 50,000 volumes, of books and 

 manufcripts, was included in the bequeit. In collefting 

 thefe books, he is reported to have fent his duplicates, 

 either to the College of Phyficians, or the Bodleian library. 

 Parliament having accepted the legacy of Sloane, aug- 

 mented it with the library of fir Robert Cotton, and tha 

 valuable manufcripts of the lord treafurer Harley ; fee 

 that article. The whole, with various additions, has been 

 depofited in the vail and maily palace of Montagu Houfe, 

 where it is now, in the moft eafy manner, and free of ex- 

 pence, acceflible to the public. Two of the founder's de- 

 fcendants are always hereditary truitees of thefe treafures, 

 adoeiated by the original aft of parliament, or by particu- 

 lar eleftion, with a limited number of the moll eminent men 

 in the kingdom. For the prefent ftate of this noble repofi- 

 tory, and its more particular hiftory, fee Museum, Britijh. 

 Sloane's Works. Pulteney's Sketches of Botany. Aikin's 

 Gen. Biog. S. 



SLOANEA, 



