THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 25. 
894 
information, to Tirydail, near Llandillo, where lie 
resides. 
“ You will observe that I have flued the walls, for using 
fire-heat, if necessary, in very severe frost, for the comfort 
of the cattle; or, in clamp weather, for drying the house, to 
prevent late hanging fruit from becoming mouldy or mil¬ 
dewed. The air for the fires is taken from the inside of the 
house, to assist in promoting circulation of air.” 
GOSSIP. 
A correspondent ( C whose handwriting we would gladly 
see often, writes as follows, relative to a passage in our 
' present volume at page 368 :— 
“Will you permit me, in the most courteous manner, to 
inform Mr. Beaton that William Wells, Esq., of Redleaf, was 
the other gentleman to whom Lord Hardinge offered one 
of the plants of the Amherslia nobilis. Respect for the 
memory of a gentleman so esteemed as a liberal patron of 
horticulture as Mr. Wells was well known to be, induces me 
to think that when such minutiae are detailed, it is only just 
that the fact should be as deserving of mention as that Her 
Majesty, and other exalted personages, were so honoured by 
Lord Hardinge.” 
Nearly two years since we drew attention to the two 
Tradescants by the following short memoir:— 
Even as late as the end of Henry the Eighth’s reign 
(1540) it was the custom of his queen to send for a salad 
to Holland ; and his daughter, Queen Elizabeth, when 
endeavouring to improve our horticulture, and to rescue it 
from that shameful dependence, thought it wise to seek for 
instructors in the same country: she obtained from thence 
one Tredeskin, or Tradeskin, to be the Royal Gardener, 
who, with his equally celebrated son, are especially entitled 
to our notice. John Tredeskin, or, as it is now usual to 
call him, Tradescant, was not gardener to Queen Elizabeth 
only, but probably held the same appointment in the royal 
households of her successors, James and Charles I.; for 
when he died, about this time in 1637, he was succeeded, as 
gardener to the king last named, by his son, usually known 
as John Tradescant the younger. There is no record of his 
burial, but in the churchwardens accounts for 1637-8 of the 
parish where he resided, St. Mary’s Lambeth, there is this 
funereal entry :—“ Item. John Tredeskin; ye yret bell and 
black cloth, 5s. id.” His wife had died three years previously, 
for in the same parish-officer's accounts for 1634 is this 
acknowledgment—“June 1. Received for burial of Jane, 
wife of John Tradeskin, 12s.” The emoluments arising from 
the ofiice of royal gardener were considerable; money was 
then five times more valuable than now, yet even then the 
gardener at Hampton Court (who was also a foreigner, John 
Dinye), another of the royal establishments, received about 
two shillings per day; and Tradescant probably, as the head 
cultivator of the London establishments, would receive more. 
It is, moreover, certain that he had profited both in acquir¬ 
ing knowledge and wealth, by being gardener to the Lord 
Treasurer Salisbury, Lord Wotton, and the Duke of Buck¬ 
ingham, previously to succeeding to the royal gardenersliip. 
He was devoted to his profession, and travelled far more 
assiduously and fearlessly in pursuit of plants than did bis 
contemporary Gerard; the emblematic figures still traceable 
upon his tomb in Lambeth Churchyard seem to have refer¬ 
ence to his visits to Greece, Egypt, and Barbary; and he 
even accompanied the fleet sent against the Algerines in 
1620, for no other purpose than to obtain a supply of Algier 
apricot-trees: he was successful in his enterprise, and our 
gardens were also indebted to him for a new strawberry 
from Russia, and a superior variety of plum from Turkey. 
Our pleasure grounds, also, were enriched by him with the 
deciduous Cypress, and many flowers. He lived and died, 
at the date we have stated, at his house in South Lambeth, 
and surrounded by the plants and curiosities he had col¬ 
lected in such abundance, that the garden and establishment 
were known popularly as “ Tradescant’s Ark.” His son, 
John Tradescant, junior, succeeded him in his appoint¬ 
ment, and was in every way his equal as a gardener, natu¬ 
ralist, and antiquary. Lie also was a traveller in search of 
plants, visiting Virginia in 1620, and bringing thence many 
new plants; among these was the Spiderwort, and if this 
was named after him Tradescantia, in allusion to his fond¬ 
ness for antiquities, it is a satire not severe enough to be 
offensive, nor within the just reproof—“ if you crown a 
botanist, let it not be with thorns.” We have before us that 
rarity—a perfect copy of his catalogue, with portraits of his 
father and himself, entitled Mnsceum Tradescantianum ; or, a 
collection of rarities preserved at South Lambeth , veer London, 
by John Tradescant. This was published in 1656 ; and that 
it did contain rarities our readers may judge when we state 
that one item is “ Two feathers of the Phoenix tail! ” The 
list of plants in this catalogue is far more rich and authentic, 
for he was here a teacher and not a novice ; and it is grati¬ 
fying that the very spot is known where they were cultivated 
by him : it is close to the vinegar manufactory of Messrs. 
Beaufoy; and when visited by Dr. Watson in 1749, a few 
plants Were detected among the weeds—“ manifest footsteps 
of the founder.” That spot is yet worthy of a pilgrimage, 
and we wish the garden could be found there entire, to 
reward the research of each palmer of science, instead of 
being almost traceless, and associated with many details of 
sorrow and shame. Tradescant found himself in old age 
childless; and lie tells us of the departure jof the last of 
bis descendants, when, in all the simplicity of true grief, he 
states that his catalogue had been long before written, when 
“ presently thereupon my only son died,” and for four years 
it was passed aside. Mr. Ashmole, a man of congenial 
pursuits, lodged in Tradescant’s house, and the childless 
couple, for Tradescant’s wife was a party, by a deed of gift 
(we use Ashmole’s Own words) “bestowed upon me their 
closet of curiosities when they died.” Tradescant died on 
the 22nd, and was buried on the 26th of April, 1662, and 
Ashmole has the boldness to record bis own baseness when 
he enters in his Diary, under the date of May 30th— May 
of the same year !—“ This Easter Term I preferred a bill in 
Chancery against Mrs. Tradescant for the rarities her hus¬ 
band had settled on me.” In two years he records that his 
suit came to a hearing, and he evidently was foiled, for he 
does not state the result, and the widow remained in pos¬ 
session. But the antiquarian vulture was not to be battled ; 
he hung upon the aged widow, and, we may be sure, im¬ 
portuned and dogged her, and was impatient that death did 
not sooner render the gift-deed operative. At length he 
prevailed, and tells us in his Diary—“Nov. 26, 1674. Mrs. 
Tradescant being willing to deliver up the rarities to me, I 
carried several of them to my house.” This taking from 
the old widow these relics and remembrances of happier 
times seems to have continued at intervals, and then came 
the fearful ending, which the spoiler shall tell himself. 
“ 1678, April 4. My wife told me Mrs. Tradescant was 
found drowned in her pond! ” We have erred—this was 
not the end; for next year Ashmole obtained a lease of the 
poor old widow’s house and garden, and the name of Trades¬ 
cant is not associated with that of Ashmole, though bis 
“ closet of curiosities ” formed a part of what is now the 
Ashmolean Museum. We are aware that there is a docu¬ 
ment in the Bodleian Library purporting to be signed by 
Mrs. Tradescant, acknowledging she had vilified Mr. Ash¬ 
mole ; but who shall convince us that that signature is 
genuine ? 
We republish this memoir because we would shew that 
the Tradescants are worthy of the gratitude of every gar¬ 
dener and botanist, and that every one of them who can 
spare a shilling would do well to send it to any one of the 
following gentlemen, who have consented to receive con¬ 
tributions for the repair of the Tradescants’ Tomb, in 
Lambeth Churchyard:— Sir W. J. Hooker, Royal Gardens, 
Kew; J. F. Young, Esq., M.D., Lambeth ; P. B. Duncan, 
Esq., Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Rev. 
C. B. Dalton, Rectory, Lambeth ; Messrs. Reeve, Henrietta 
Street, Covent Garden; Messrs, van Voorst, Paternoster 
Row; and Mr. Pamplin, Frith Street, Soho. 
The Whitehaven and West Cumberland Horticultural Society 
have fixed their show days to be on the 9th of July and 17tii 
of September. This Society was established in 1830. Its 
secretary is Mr. Dixon, 3, Market Place, Whitehaven. 
