him that time for continued research which he had coveted and contracted for. The Duchess of ALBEMARLE had accompanied her husband in his voyage, and, after the first shock of his death had been borne, was naturally desirous to leave the colony. SLOANE could not allow her to take the return voyage without his attendance. He hastened to gather up his collections and prepared to come home. The fleet set sail from Port Royal on the 16th of March, 1689. The voyage was full of anxiety. Such news from England as had yet reached the West Indies was very fragmentary. And the lack of authentic intelligence about the outbreak of the Revolution and its results, had been eked-out by all sorts of wild rumours. The voyagers looked daily with intense eagerness for outward-bound ships that might bring them news, and were especially anxious to know if war had broken out between England and France. When they caught sight of a sail so wistfully watched for, they commonly observed in the other vessel as great a desire to avoid a meeting, as there was amongst themselves to ensure one. The Duchess of ALBEMARLE had with her a large amount of wealth in plate and jewels, as well as a large retinue. Her anxieties were not lessened when the captain of the frigate said to her Grace, two or three weeks after the departure from Port Royal: I cannot fight any ship having King JAMES' commission, from whom I received mine.' On hearing this assurance-which seemed to open to her the prospect, or at least the possible contingency, of being carried into France-the Duchess resolved to change her ship. With SLOANE and with her suite she left the Assistance, and re-embarked, first in the late Duke's yacht, and then in one of the larger ships of the fleet. After this separation, 'our Admiral,' says SLOANE, 'preded he wanted water and must make the best of his y for England, without staying to convoy us home, ich accordingly he did.' The voyage, nevertheless, was de in safety. Book I, Chap. VI. FOUNDERS Voyage to vol. ii, p. 344. They learned very little of what had happened at home, Jamaica, &c., il they had arrived within a few leagues of Plymouth. en SLOANE himself went out, in an armed boat, with intention of picking up such news as could be gathered n any fishermen who might be met with near the coast. e first fishing vessel they hailed did her best to run away, was caught in the pursuit. To the question, 'How is King?' the master's reply was, 'What King do you n? King WILLIAM is well at Whitehall. King JAMES France.' Ibid., p. 347. EARLY YEARS IN SLOANE landed at Plymouth on the 29th of May, with e collections in all branches of natural history, and with ENGLAND. roved prospects of fortune.' The Duchess of ALBEMARLE aved to him with great liberality, and for some years to e he continued to be her domestic physician, and lived, for most part, in one or other of her houses as his usual place sidence. In 1690 much of his correspondence bears date the Duchess' seat at New Hall, in Essex. In 1692 ind him frequently at Albemarle House, in Clerkenwell. had also made, whilst in the West Indies, a lucky stment in the shape of a large purchase of Peruvian . It was already a lucrative article of commerce, and >rovident importer had excellent professional opportuni- Stone of adding to its commercial value by making its in- in Mss. ic merits more widely known in England. e botanists, more especially, were delighted with the accessions to previous knowledge which SLOANE had ght back with him. When I first saw,' said John Corresp., Sloane. Book I, Chap. VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 1693. THE CATALOGUE OF WEST PLANTS, AND 1626. RAY, 'his stock of dried plants collected in Jamaica, and in some of the Caribbee Islands, I was much astonished at the number of the capillary kind, not thinking there had been so many to be found in both the Indies.' The collector, himself, had presently his surprise in the matter, but it was of a less agreeable kind. 'My collection,' he says, ' of dried samples of some very strange plants excited the curiosity of people who loved things of that nature to see them, and who were welcome, until I observed some so very curious as to desire to carry part of them privately home, and injure what they left. This made me upon my guard.' On the 30th of November, 1693, SLOANE was elected to the Secretaryship of the Royal Society. A year afterwards he was made Physician to Christ Hospital. It is eminently to his honour that from his first entrance into this office-which he held for thirty-six years-he applied the whole of its emoluments for the advantage and advancement of deserving boys who were receiving their education there. For that particular appointment he was himself none the richer, save in contentment and good works. in In 1696 he made his first appearance as an author by the publication of his Catalogus Plantarum quæ in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt, vel vulgo coluntur, cum earundem synonimis et locis natalibus: Adjectis aliis quibusdam quæ insulis Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, et Sancti Christophori nascuntur. He had already seen far too much of the world to marvel that his book soon brought him censure as well as praise. By Leonard PLUKENET, a botanist of great acquirements and ability, many portions of the Jamaica Catalogue were attacked, sometimes on well-grounded objections; more often upon exceptions rather captious than just, and with that bitterness of expression which is the failing finger-post of envy. PLUKENET's strictures were BOOK I, blished in his Almagesti Botanici Mantissa.* Chap. VI. SLOANE THE care FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. de no rash haste to answer his critic. Where the sure bore correction of real error or oversight, he ly profited by it. Where it was the mere cloak of malice, awaited without complaint the appropriate time for ling, both with censure and censor, which would be e to come when he should give to the world the ripened ults of the voyage of 1687. A passage in Dr. SLOANE'S correspondence with Dr. ARLETT, of Cambridge, written in the same year with publication of the Jamaica Catalogue, shows that even ilst he was still almost at the threshold of his London , he was able steadily to enlarge his museum. At that ly date, CHARLETT, who had seen it during a visit to Charlett to don, calls it already a noble collection of all natural Ms. Corresp., iosities.' The collector, when he landed its first fruits 4043, f. 193. Plymouth, had yet before him-such was to be his un As, for example, under the words 'Lapathum;' Poonnacai Malarum; 'Ricinus ;' 'Salix ;' and several others. See Almagesti BotaMantissa, pp. 113; 143; 161; 165, &c. Dr. Arthur Charlett's long and intimate correspondence with Sir s Sloane began in this year (1696), and continued without interion until 1720. It has much interest, and fills MS. Sloane 4040, f. 193 to f. 285. That with John Chamberlayne was of nearly equal tion, and is preserved in the same volume (ff. 100-167). The corredence with James Bobart contains much valuable material for the ry of botanical study in England, and is preserved in MS. Sloane, (ff. 158-185). It began in 1685, and was continued until Bobart's 1, in 1716. Still more curious is the correspondence with John et (1722-1738), who was originally a surgeon in the service of last India Company, and afterwards Surgeon to the King of Spain. et's letters to Sloane, written from Madrid, contain valuable illusns of Spanish society and manners as they were in the first half e Eighteenth Century. This correspondence is in MS. Sloane, Sloane, in Book I, THE OF THE LIFE OF Sir Hans SLOANE was the seventh and youngest son of Alexander SLOANE, a Scotchman who had married one of the daughters of Dr. George HICKES, Prebendary of Winchester, and who had settled in Ireland on receiving the appointment of receiver-general of the estates of the Lord CLANEBOY, afterwards Earl of CLANRICARDE. He was born at Killileagh, in the county Down, on the 16th of April, 1660. of We learn that almost from earliest youth, Hans SLOANE evinced his possession of quick parts and of keen powers observation. And he gave early indications of that happy constitution of mind and will which now and then permits the union of intellectual ambition and aspiration, with not a little of prudential shrewdness. A special bias towards the study of the natural sciences was—as it has often been in like cases—one of the things that were soonest taken note of by those about him. Faculties such as these naturally pointed to medicine as a fitting profession for their early possessor. His home studies, however, were checked by a severe illness which threatened his life, and from some of the effects of which he never quite recovered. But that illness helped to qualify him for his future profession. If it took away, for life, the likelihood that the bright promises of the dawn would be altogether realized in his maturity, it seems to have strengthened, in an unusual degree, both the prudential element which already marked his character, and his predisposition to rely mainly, for the success of his plans, upon plodding industry. From youth to old age an The same inaccurate statement occurs also-and more than once-in of it |