S L 0 A N E. 
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 
. And slits the thin-spun life. Milton. 
SLIT, s. [fhc, Saxon.] A long cut, or narrow 
opening. 
Where the tender rinds of trees disclose 
Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows: 
Just in that place a narrow slit we make. 
Then other buds from bearing trees we take; 
Inserted thus, the wounded rind we dose. Dry den. 
SLFTTER, s. One who cuts or slashes. Cotgrave, and 
Sherwood. 
SLITTRICK, a small river of Scotland, in Roxburgh¬ 
shire ; which, after a northerly course of about 17 -miles, 
unites with the Teviot at Hawick. 
To SLIVE, or To Sli'ver, v. a. [j-hjran, Saxon. To 
stive or rive asunder is in the old Prpmpt. Parv.] To split; 
to divide longwise; to tear off longwise. 
Liver of blaspheming Jew, 
Gall of goat, and slips of yew. 
Sliver'd in the moon’s eclipse. Shakspcare. 
To cut or cleave in general. 
To SLIVE, ®. n. [slaver, Dan., to creep.] To sneak. 
SLI'VER, s. Formerly a branch tom off; now a slice 
cut off. 
There on the pendant boughs, her coronet weed 
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, 
When down her weedy coronet and herself 
Fell in the weeping brook. Shakspeare. 
SLOANE (Sir Hans), immortalized as the principal 
founder of the British Museum, was bom at Killaleagh in the 
county of Down, Ireland, April 16, 1660. His family is 
said to have been of Scottish extraction ; but whatever their 
situation in life might be, they were destined to acquire more 
honour from him, than he derived from them; though, by 
the education which he received, his circumstances appear 
' to have been far from indigent. He is said to have been 
attached, from his youth, to the study of nature, and this led 
him perhaps to that of medicine, as a profession. A spitting 
of blood confined him at home for three years, and it was 
not till his 19th year that he was able to enter on a regular 
course of medical education at London. To this he devoted 
the four succeeding seasons, during which he was introduced 
to the acquaintance, and even the friendship, of Boyle and 
Ray. Returning to London late in 1684, Dr. Sloane be¬ 
came a favourite and inmate of the great Sydenham, who 
. seems to have intended taking him by the hand as a 
physician. He was soon chosen a fellow of the Royal 
Society, and in April 1687, entered into the College of 
Physicians. 
A desire of investigating the natural history of the West 
Indies, induced Dr. Sloane to embark for Jamaica, in Sep¬ 
tember 1687, as physician to the duke of Albemarle. He 
made ample collections of natural history, bringing home 
from Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, and St. Kitt’s, about 800 
. species of dried plants, enriched with a most abundant store 
of information respecting their qualities and uses. He 
arrived in London, May 29, 1689, where he directly re¬ 
sumed his medical occupations, with which he happily and 
successfully associated his literary pursuits. In 1694Jb^be- 
■ cafne physician to Christ’s hospital, and in 1695 was elected 
secretary to the Royal Society : he immediately revived the 
publication of its Philosophical Transactions, which had for 
six years been neglected. He was no less attentive to his 
medical duties in the College, and he projected and establish¬ 
ed a dispensary for the poor. 
In 1696, the subject of our memoir published his Latin 
Catalogue of the Plants of Jamaica, a closely printed 
octavo of 232 pages. He follows Ray’s system of arrange¬ 
ment, and is content with referring his species, as well as he 
could, like that great writer himself in his catalogues of 
British plants, to some popularly received genus. This cata¬ 
logue was not followed up, till the year 1707, by the pub- 
291 
lication of the first volume of the great work, to which it was 
a kind of Prodromus, and which is entitled “ A Voyage to 
the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, St. Christopher’s and 
Jamaica, with the Natural History of the Herbs and Trees, 
four-footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds, Insects, Reptiles, &c„ of 
the last of those islands.” To this volume is prefixed an 
introduction, of 154 pages, containing an account of the 
history and climate of Jamaica, the manners, domestic eco¬ 
nomy, food, trade, &c., of the inhabitants, and particularly 
an ample detail of their diseases; and is full of cu¬ 
rious and instructive matter. The whole is illustrated by 
256 plates, chiefly of plants, very imperfect as to botanical 
details, though characteristic in their general appearance. 
The statistical part of this book is valuable, but there are 
some remarks relative to the management of slaves, which 
are still worth referring to, especially as the question of the 
slave-trade calls for all the vigilance of the Christian moralist 
and politician, to defeat the machinations of its advocates, 
and secret promoters. 
The second volume of Sloane’s Jamaica did not appear 
till the year 1725. By some accident, this is much the 
most common of the two. 
The collections of natural history, made by Sloane in his voy¬ 
age, seem to have laid the foundation of that museum, which 
became gradually so famous. A brother collector and friend, 
Mr. Courten, in 1702, left his own acquisitions to augment 
it, on condition of the payment of certain debts and legacies, 
to an amount much below the value of what was thus be- 
ueathed. How soon curiosities of art were included in Dr, 
loane’s museum, or whether such made a part of Mr. 
Courten’s, we know not; but the whole collection was now 
very considerable, and continued increasing during the long 
life of its owner, who, the year before he died, reckoned up 
the articles of natural history, exclusive of 200 volumes of 
dried plants, as amounting to more than 30,600. Sir Hans 
in 1719 was elected president of the College of Physicians, 
and president of the Royal Society, on the death of Sir Isaac 
Newton, in 1727. He expired in the 92d year of his age, 
and was buried, along with his lady, in a vault, at the south¬ 
east corner of Chelsea church-yard, where a handsome, and 
very conspicuous monument to his memory still exists. 
The person of Sir Hans Sloane was tall and handsome; 
his manners easy, polite and cheerful. He delighted in ex¬ 
hibiting and explaining to strangers, and especially foreigners, 
whatever he possessed, and is said to have kept an open 
table once a week, for his friends, particularly such as be¬ 
longed 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 otherwise, 
than by recollecting that the opulent patron and collector, 
who had risen to eminence by his own means, felt no in¬ 
clination to go to school to a poor Swedish student, hardly 
superior in his eyes to a working gardener. Few men can 
be serviceable in many different ways. The merits of Sir 
Hans Sloane were transcendent in his own line. He neglect¬ 
ed no means, that appeared to him eligible, for promoting 
literature or science. On purchasing his great estate at 
Chelsea, he presented the Apothecaries’ Company with the 
fee simple of the garden which they had already made there, 
on a condition, equally beneficial to their fame and to science, 
that it should for ever continue a botanic garden. “ He 
was governor,” says Dr. Pulteney, “ of almost every hos¬ 
pital in London; and to each, after having given an hundred 
pounds in his life-time, he left a more considerable legacy 
at his death. He was ever a benefactor to the poor, who 
felt the consequences of his death severely. He was zealous 
in promoting the establishment of the colony of Georgia, in 
1732; and formed, himself, the plan for bringing up the 
children in the Foundling Hospital, in 1739.” 
Nor was the pen of this active philosopher 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 useful the con¬ 
tents of most of the rest may be, the last in the list, on In¬ 
oculation 
