Yet mark this scene of painted grandeur yield Yet these survey, confounded and undone That sun himself withdraws his lessen'd beam Who range the wilds or haunt the pasture green! But ardent in the sacred chorus join, Great Lord of life, from whom this humble frame So, blest Creator, let thy servant pay TO A CANDLE. Thou glimmering taper! by whose feeble ray Touch'd by mine hand, thy swift-reviving light But see in mists thy fading lustre veil'd, While round me, gathering thick, they daily spread, But now thy flame diminished quick subsides, I haste to darkness, and resemble thee. THE GOLDEN RULE. Honest friend! say all you can, In life still holds the golden rule: That riches make a fool a man, And poverty a man-a fool! JUSTICE, WHY BLIND? Says Will to Mat-"What cause can be assign'd SIR HANS SLOANE. BORN 1660-DIED 1752. [Sir Hans Sloane, ever memorable as the | in his new position revived the publication of actual founder of the British Museum, was the Society's Transactions, which had been born at Killyleagh in the county of Down, on interrupted. These he continued to edit till the 16th of April, 1660. His father was col- 1712, and in the volumes for this period will lector of taxes for the county, and as such was be found many papers from his pen. In 1694 able to give his son a good education, in the he was chosen physician to Christ's Hospital, process of which the bent of his genius towards the money from which appointment he dethe study of natural history disclosed itself. voted entirely to the relief of poor patients in At sixteen, owing to intense application, he the hospital. In 1695 he married, and in 1697 was attacked with a spitting of blood, and for published his Catalogue of the Native Plants almost three years his life was despaired of. of Jamaica. In 1701 his rich collections were At the end of this time he recovered, and made still richer by a bequest from a friend, choosing physic for his profession at once Mr. William Courten, who had spent the plunged into the study of chemistry and botany. greater part of his fortune and lifetime in To acquire these thoroughly he removed to getting together the museum which he left London, where for four years he attended all to Sloane. At this time his position not the public lectures on chemistry, anatomy, and only as a scientific man but also as a phybotany. During this time also he made the sician was very high. He was constantly acquaintance of Boyle and Ray, to both of consulted by Queen Anne, and attended her whom he gave help, and from them received during her last illness. On the accession of advice and assistance. George I. he was created a baronet, and made physician-general; and in 1727 he was appointed physician to George II. In the same year also, on the death of Newton, he was appointed president of the Royal Society; and in 1733, owing to growing years and labours, he resigned the presidentship of the Royal College of Physicians, to which he had been elected in 1719. In 1740, at the age of eighty, he resigned the presidentship of the Royal Society and retired to Chelsea, where he had established a botanic garden. Here he continued to receive the visits of learned men, native and foreign, and, says his biographer, "admittance was never refused to the poor, who came to consult him concerning their health." After an illness of only three days, he died on the 11th of January, 1752, in his ninety-second year. At the end of his four years in London he went to Paris, where he attended the hospitals, and heard the lectures of Tournefort and Duberney. From Tournefort he received letters of introduction to the chancellor of the University of Montpellier; by him he was introduced to M. Magnol, an eminent botanist, who accompanied him in many botanical excursions. After spending a whole year in making collections around Montpellier he made a journey through Languedoc with the same object in view; and in 1684 returned to London, where he intended to settle and follow his profession of physic. In 1685 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1687 a Fellow of the College of Physicians. From this time his London practice was very lucrative, and a fortunate speculation in a quantity of cinchona which he imported helped to build up his fortune. In the will left by Sir Hans Sloane he bequeathed a sum of money to every hospital in Before long, however, the prospects of mak- London; he gave the Company of the Apotheing new discoveries in natural history induced caries the freehold of the botanical garden at him to go out to Jamaica as physician to the Chelsea, where a marble statue was afterwards Duke of Albemarle, then governor of that island. erected to his memory; and to the nation Although he remained only some fifteen months he devised his museum, worth at least £80,000, in Jamaica, yet when he returned to England on the condition that £20,000 should be paid he brought with him a surprising collection of to his family. The coins in the collection plants as well as a rich collection of animal were worth as bullion some £7000, and indeed specimens. In 1693 he was appointed secre- "the intrinsic value of the gold and silver tary to the Royal Society, and as his first work | medals, the ores and precious stones, that were found in it" was alone equal to the £20,000. | broken or white, the more you see of them. Besides these rich specimens and the natural I endeavoured with a swab several times history collections, the museum also contained dipped into the water to pull some of those a library of more than 50,000 volumes, 3566 sparkles up, but could not, for they would not of which were manuscripts, and a large num- stick to it, wherefore I had a bucket of water ber very rare and curious. The government drawn, and by moving it up and down with of course accepted the offer contained in the my hand, saw some of them appear now and will, and the museum was removed to Mon- then on its surface, but once had the good tagu House, Bloomsbury. It there formed luck to move it in such a manner that one of the nucleus of one of our noblest institutions, those sparkles hit on the bucket rope, and the British Museum, which was opened in sticking there gave me the opportunity of 1759 to the general public. squatting it with my thumb, and making it by that means give a larger light, which it did for some small time, and then went out. I did not observe that it had any actual heat on touch. Nicolas Papin, who wrote a treatise in French about this, giving it the title of Mer Lumineuse ou Traité de la Lumière de la Mer, tells us that agitation without froth produces it even at bottom; how true I cannot tell. In addition to his Catalogue of Jamaica Plants, Sir Hans Sloane wrote The Natural History of Jamaica, which appeared in two volumes folio in 1707 and 1725. He also wrote a considerable number of papers, many of which, as we have said, appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society. The larger work has been highly commended, not only at the time of its appearance, but frequently since then, notably by Dr. Friend in his History of Physic.1] THE LIGHT OF THE SEA.2 I had very often heard of, but never observed before, the sparkling light of sea-water, which appears thus. In a dark night (the darker the better will you observe it) if you look attentively on the surface of the sea you shall see now and then a little sparkling light, sometimes broader and at other time narrower, which presently vanishes. If you row in the same you see it very plain where the oars touch the water. On a part of the sea where the wave breaks or curls you see it much plainer, and by the ship side or bow, where the water is more broken, you see it most of all. Sometimes you shall see as it were a spark of fire leap up into the air as if a flint and steel were struck together, which nevertheless vanishes very soon, though sometimes I have seen a sparkle left by the water on the entering ladder of a ship's side which has continued there shining for some half a minute's time, like the icy noctiluca or phosphorus, the light of this being as to colour, &c., like that of the other; the seamen told me that they were more ordinarily to be seen in southerly winds than any other, how true I know not, but I am sure the more the sea is 1 For an amusing description of Sir Hans, written by Mrs. Pilkington when disappointed of receiving his patronage, see page 211. This and the three following extracts are from The Natural History of Jamaica. VOL. I. THE COCO TREE. Pyrara de la Val, who lived several years in the Maldive Islands, and by his own exwriter I know of, tells that there it is called. perience knew more of this tree than any Roul, in Malabar Tengua, in Guzaratte Narquilly, by the Portuguese Palermo and fruit Cocos; it grows only in the torrid zone, tho' there not everywhere; more in the Maldives than in any other part; they are forced to cut them down to make room for houses, which they suffer them not near, because the winds sometimes blow them down on their houses and kill the inhabitants in them. Rats eat holes in them when green for meat and drink, whereby they dry and fall, often killing those about them, because of the height, with their weight, so that in the desert isles the ground is covered with them, but not so where the isles are inhabited, because when so dried they make good fuel. Ants make their tracks at their feet, and carry the earth from them, whence they fall. They grow twenty toises high. The under half of the tree is good for building and shipping. The under part, three foot high where 'tis thickest, makes a trough for honey or water. Cocos are sometimes in moist and sandy ground, and does not come a bunch; a bunch comes every month; it loves well within land; if no water be in it and it be too dry it will not grow. The whole fruit must be planted, otherwise it corrupts; when water shakes on striking on it or not it is a sign of its being ripe or not. The middle rib 13 cleaves and makes laths and palisades; the leaves serve for thatch; with stiles they write on them as paper. They are used for sails, mats, hats, panniers, and parasols, and everything usually in Europe made of osier or willow; little baskets, brooms, and coffers are made of the middle ribs of it. Javelins are made of the middle ribs tied together and lacquered. They make pins of them likewise, and steep the bark of the fruit or husk somewhat green peel'd from the nuts to make ropes or oakum. It is to lie three weeks in the seawater covered with sand, then the inhabitants beat it as hemp or flax with wooden mallets, make match of it when the fruit is ripe, which is not soaked and beat but spun with all its substance, when they boil it with ashes and use it for match all over the Indies, except where cocos are scarce, where they use cotton. Pots, spoons, and cups are made of the shell, and forge coal. The kernel is eat as bread with other victuals, and grated and pressed; it gives milk, as sugared milk or almond milk, and with honey or sugar is drank fasting, and is their only purging medicine. This milk boiled thickens and turns into oil fit for fricasees, &c., for lamps, and for curing ulcers. The author was cured with it; it is also good for the itch. From a yellow oil it grows a white butter, being kept three months to be used as oil. The mare or dry part of the kernel, pressed with honey or sugar, is used to make preserves; when very young husk and all is eat like an apple, but this is only one kind, which is not good when ripe. They make quarts or measures of the spathes and conserves of the flowers. The membrane between the leaves is good to make sacks and also sieves to strain things through. The Indians cut the flowering footstalk a foot high, and get a sort of wine, a quart a day for six months; they boil it with some clear white stones found in the sea, and make it into honey or sugar, and with other stones it is made whiter; they make good arrack and good vinegar of it. The drawing this liquor spoils the fruit of the tree. The tender top, three foot in length, is good to eat. The ripe fruit, left in moist places or in the ground three weeks or a month, the sprout or germen is good meat and very tender. They dry the kernel to send it to Arabia, by dividing the nut in two and exposing it to the sun to dry, and use for sauces, pottage, and oil, which oil is better and keeps longer than that drawn from the fresh fruit; a black colour is given by the sawings of the wood, its own sugar, and water, left for some days in the sun. Infinite numbers of ships of a hundred or a hundredand-twenty tons are made of it, without the help of any iron or other wood but what comes from this tree. The natives make drums of this tree, hollowed and covered with large ray skins, and furbish their arms with the wood. The inhabitants write on the leaves with a bodkin; they are as white as paper. The natives eat one half ripe and drink the water of it at the beginning of a meal, saying it is wholesome and laxative. THE COTTON TREE. When this tree first grows up it has a very round stem, green, and almost covered over with short prickles, being very thick where they stick to the stalk, sometimes shaped like a cock's-comb and blunt. The leaves are then small and of a very deep green colour. After some few years the trunk, when it is come to its due growth, is large to a wonder, even to that degree as to be fit to be hollowed into the figure of a boat or made into a canoe, able to carry many tons on the water. The wood is white and very soft, the bark is gray, smooth, without any prickles or sulci, and the trunk rises usually to about sixty foot high, being towards its top bellied, or larger than it is at bottom. This, as several other trees, at its coming out of the earth has several spurs, that is, on every hand very broad plain roots supporting the tree (like buttresses to old buildings), running themselves on and into the surface of the earth; the larger the tree the larger are these buttresses towards the roots, so that sometimes they are made into large tables. The branches towards the top are spread on every hand all round, making with its leaves a very fine shade. About the beginning of January its leaves wither and fall off, and there come at the ends of the twigs several tufts or bunches of flowers, every one of which stands on an inch-long green round footstalk. It is made up of five three quarters of an inch long purplish brown satined petala, enclosing as many stamina with purple and yellow heads; on the outside of them is a green five-pointed capsula, within which is a round green knob, which as soon as the flower is opened thrusts it and its stamina (being all joined at the bottom) off together, so that being under the tree in a hot day one would wonder to see what numbers fall every minute. After the flowers The guana used to feed on calabash-pulp, and lived very well aboard of the yacht, till one day when it was running along the gunwale of the vessel a seaman frightened it, and it leaped overboard and was drowned. follows an oblong, round, pointed membranaceous pod or capsula, almost as big as one's fist, made up of several pieces, containing a great deal of very soft or silken gray down, and in it some almost round brown seeds near as large as peas, much of the shape of cotton seeds. When the fruit is ripe the wind carries the down away, filling whole fields with it. The leaves come after the fruit is ripe; they are figured like those of the horse-chest-toes joined with a web. The armour he was nut, there being seven or nine very long green smooth sections standing always on the same common long footstalks. ON THE RETURN VOYAGE. Though I foresaw the difficulties, yet I had an intention to try and bring with me from Jamaica some uncommon creatures alive, such as a large yellow snake seven foot long, a guana or great lizard, a crocodile, &c. I had the snake tamed by an Indian, whom it would | follow as a dog would his master, and after it was delivered to me, I kept it in a large earthen jar, such as are for keeping the best water for commanders of ships during their voyages, covering its mouth with two boards, and laying weights upon them. I had it fed every day by the guts and garbage of fowl, &c., put into the jar from the kitchen. Thus it lived for some time, when, being weary of its confinement, it shoved asunder the two boards on the mouth of the jar, and got up to the top of a large house wherein lay footmen and other domestics of her grace the Duchess of Albemarle, who, being afraid to lie down in such company, shot my snake dead. It seemed before this disaster to be very well pleased with its situation, being in a part of the house which was filled with rats, which are the most pleasing food for these sort of serpents. 'Tis upon this account that the European nations inhabiting the countries producing sugar do not molest these creatures, because they destroy the rats which came originally from ships cast away on the coast, and multiply strangely there and do infinite mischief to the sugar canes, not only by eating them, but spoiling the juice of those they gnaw. The crocodile or alligator I kept in a tub of salt-water towards the forecastle, and fed it with the same sort of food as the snake, but it died on the 14th of May. It had five defended with, or large thick scales, were quadrangular over the upper part of his body and sides. The ribs were cartilaginous, and towards the abdomen were crooked, and made one with another the figure of lozenges. May 29th, 1689.—We had fifty-five fathoms of water, and soon saw Scilly; the dangerous rocks called the Bishop and his Clerks, the Landsend, Lizard, and in the morning came in towards Plymouth, to get intelligence whether there was peace or war, and with whom, lest going up the Channel we might be taken as prizes. This we the rather did because some days before we had seen boards, chests, &c., floating on the sea, which were guessed to have been thrown overboard to clear ships for a fight, and which was concluded afterwards to have been really from that between the English and French in Bantry Bay. When we came within some leagues of Plymouth I was sent in an armed long-boat to get certain knowledge of the situation of public affairs, and to give a speedy account of it to the fleet, who were to stand off of that port till they were assured of their safety or danger. We had a sight first of a boat which was fishing some leagues from the land, whose master did what he could to fly from us; but coming up with him, asking what news and where the king was, he asked what king we meant, for that King William was well at Whitehall, and King James in France, that there was war with France, and that the Channel was full of privateers, who had taken many prizes. He went again to his fishing, and I gave notice to the ships to come into Plymouth, which we did that day, and soon after her Grace the Duchess of Albemarle landed with most of us her plate, jewels, &c., and came up, thanks be to God, with safety by land to London. |