If it be true that the written accounts which those who had recovered
from sickness caused to be drawn out of their cure, their disorder, and
the medicines employed to remove it, and to be hung up in the temples,
particularly that of Æsculapius, were the first collections of medical
observations[838], as seems to appear by the testimony of Hippocrates,
who did not disdain to make use of them in order to acquire
information[839]; we have every reason to conjecture, that the rare
animals, plants and minerals, generally preserved in the temples also,
were the first collections of natural curiosities, and that they may
have contributed as much to promote the knowledge of natural history,
as those tablets to improve the art of medicine. Natural objects of
uncommon size or beauty, and other rare productions, on which nature
seemed to have exerted her utmost power, were in the earliest periods
consecrated to the gods[840]. They were conveyed to the temples, where
their value became still enhanced by the sacredness and antiquity of
the place; where they continued more and more to excite respect and
awaken curiosity, and where they were preserved as memorials to the
latest generations, with the same reverence as the other furniture
of these buildings. In the course of time these natural curiosities
dedicated to the gods became so numerous, that they formed collections
which may be called large for those periods, and for the infant state
in which natural history then was.
When Hanno returned from his distant voyages, he brought with him to
Carthage two skins of the hairy women whom he found on the Gorgades
islands, and deposited them as a memorial in the temple of Juno, where
they continued till the destruction of the city[841]. The horns of a
Scythian animal, in which the Stygian water that destroyed every other
vessel could be contained, were sent by Alexander as a curiosity to the
temple of Delphi, where they were suspended, with an inscription, which
has been preserved by Ælian[842]. The monstrous horns of the wild bulls
which had occasioned so much devastation in Macedonia, were by order of
king Philip hung up in the temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed
shoulder-bones of Pelops were deposited in the temple of Elis[843].
The horns of the so-called Indian ants were shown in the temple of
Hercules at Erythræ[844]; and the crocodile found in attempting to
discover the sources of the Nile was preserved in the temple of Isis
at Cæsarea[845]. A large piece of the root of the cinnamon-tree was
kept in a golden vessel in one of the temples at Rome, where it was
examined by Pliny[846]. The skin of that monster which the Roman army
in Africa attacked and destroyed, and which probably was a crocodile,
an animal common in that country, but never seen by the Romans before
the Punic war, was by Regulus sent to Rome, and hung up in one of the
temples, where it remained till the time of the Numantine war[847].
In the temple of Juno, in the island of Melita, there were a pair of
elephant’s teeth of extraordinary size, which were carried away by
Masinissa’s admiral, and transmitted to that prince, who, though he
set a high value upon them, sent them back again because he heard
they had been taken from a temple[848]. The head of a basilisc was
exhibited in one of the temples of Diana[849]; and the bones of that
sea-monster, probably a whale, to which Andromeda was exposed, were
preserved at Joppa, and afterwards brought to Rome[850]. In the time
of Pausanias, the head of the celebrated Calydonian boar was shown in
one of the temples of Greece; but it was then destitute of bristles,
and had suffered considerably by the hand of time. The monstrous tusks
of this animal were brought to Rome, after the defeat of Antony, by
the emperor Augustus, who caused them to be suspended in the temple of
Bacchus[851]. Apollonius tells us, that he saw in India some of those
nuts which in Greece were preserved in the temples as curiosities[852].
It is certain, however, that all these articles, though preserved in
the temples of the ancients as rarities or memorials of remarkable
events, or as objects calculated to silence unbelief, were not properly
kept there for the purpose to which our collections of natural
curiosities are applied; but at the same time it must be allowed that
they might be of as much utility to naturalists, as the tablets, in
which patients who had recovered thanked the gods for their cures, were
to physicians.
We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Augustus had in his palace
a collection of natural curiosities[853]. I, however, do not remember
that any of the ancient naturalists make mention of their own private
collections; though it is well known that Alexander gave orders to all
huntsmen, bird-catchers, fishermen and others, to send to Aristotle
whatever animals they could procure[854]; and although Pliny was
accustomed to make observations on such as he had an opportunity of
seeing. No doubt can be entertained that a collection of natural
curiosities was formed by Apuleius, who, next to Aristotle and his
scholar Theophrastus, certainly examined natural objects with the
greatest ardour and judgement; who caused animals of every kind, and
particularly fish, to be brought to him either dead or alive, in
order to describe their external and internal parts, their number
and situation, and to determine their characteristic peculiarities,
and assign names to them; who undertook distant journeys to become
acquainted with the secrets of nature; and who on the Getulian
mountains collected petrifactions, which he considered as the effects
of Deucalion’s flood. It is much to be lamented that the zoological
works of this learned and ingenious man have been lost.
The principal cause why collections of natural curiosities were scarce
in ancient times, must have been the ignorance of naturalists in
regard to the proper means of preserving such bodies as soon spoil or
corrupt. Some methods were indeed known and practised, but they were
all defective and inferior to that by spirit of wine, which prevents
putrefaction, and which by its perfect transparency permits objects
covered by it to be at all times viewed and examined. These methods
were the same as those employed to preserve provisions, or the bodies
of great men deceased. They were put into salt brine or honey, or were
covered over with wax.
It appears that in the earliest periods bodies were preserved from
corruption by means of salt[855], and that this practice was long
continued. We are told that Pharnaces caused the body of his father
Mithridates to be deposited in salt brine, in order that he might
transmit it to Pompey[856]. Eunapius, who lived in the fifth century,
relates that the monks preserved the heads of the martyrs by means of
salt[857]; and we are informed by Sigebert, who died in 1113, that a
like process was pursued with the body of St. Guibert, that it might be
kept during a journey in summer[858]. In the same manner the priests
preserved the sow which afforded a happy omen to Æneas, by having
brought forth a litter of thirty pigs, as we are told by Varro, in
whose time the animal was still shown at Lavinium[859]. A hippocentaur
(probably a monstrous birth), caught in Arabia, was brought alive to
Egypt; and as it died there, it was, after being preserved in salt
brine, sent to Rome to the emperor, and deposited in his collection,
where it was shown in the time of Pliny, and in that of Phlegon[860].
Another hippocentaur was preserved by the like method, and transmitted
to the emperor Constantine at Antioch[861]; and a large ape of the
species called Pan, sent by the Indians to the emperor Constantius,
happening to die on the road by being shut up in a cage, was placed
in salt, and in that manner conveyed to Constantinople[862]. This
method of preserving natural objects has been even employed in modern
times to prevent large bodies from being affected by corruption. The
hippopotamus described by Columna was sent to him from Egypt preserved
in salt[863].
To put dead bodies in honey, for the purpose of securing them from
putrefaction, is an ancient practice[864], and was used at an early
period by the Assyrians[865]. The body of Agesipolis king of Sparta,
who died in Macedonia, was sent home in honey[866], as were also the
bodies of Agesilaus[867] and Aristobulus[868]. The faithless Cleomenes
caused the head of Archonides to be put in honey, and had it always
placed near him when he was deliberating upon any affair of great
importance, in order to fulfil the oath he had made to undertake
nothing without consulting his head[869]. According to the account
of some authors, the body of Alexander the Great was deposited in
honey[870], though others relate that it was embalmed according to the
manner of the Egyptians[871]. The body of the emperor Justin II. was
also placed in honey mixed with spices[872]. The wish of Democritus to
be buried in honey[873] is likewise a confirmation of this practice.
Honey was often applied in ancient times to purposes for which we use
sugar. It was employed for preserving fruit[874]; and this process is
not disused at present. In order to preserve fresh for many years the
celebrated purple dye of the ancients, honey was poured over it[875],
and certain worms useful in medicine were kept free from corruption by
the like means[876]. By the same method also were natural curiosities
preserved, such as the hippocentaur already mentioned; and it has been
employed in later times, as is proved by the account given by Alexander
ab Alexandro[877], respecting the supposed mermen.
Among the Scythians[878], Assyrians[879], and Persians[880], dead
bodies were covered over with wax. That of Agesilaus, because honey
could not be procured, was preserved in this manner[881], which
indeed ought not to be despised even at present. When the Orientals
are desirous of transporting fish to any distance, they cover them
over with wax[882]; and the apples carried every year to the northern
parts of Siberia and Archangel, from the southern districts of Russia,
are first dipped in melted wax, which, by forming a thick coat around
them, keeps out the air, and prevents them from spoiling. This property
has in my opinion given rise to the ancient custom of wrapping up in
wax-cloth the dead bodies of persons of distinction. Linen, or perhaps
silk, which had been done over with wax, was used on such occasions,
but not what we at present distinguish by the name of wax-cloth, which
is only covered with an oil-varnish in imitation of the real kind. The
body of St. Ansbert, we are told, was wrapped up _linteo cerato_; and
a _camisale ceratum_[883] was drawn over the clothes which covered
that of St. Udalric. When Philip duke of Burgundy died in 1404, his
body was wrapped up in thirty-two ells _de toile cirée_[884]. In an
ancient record, respecting the ceremony to be used in burying the
kings of England, it is ordered that the body shall be wrapped up in
wax-cloth[885]. In the year 1774, when the grave of king Edward I.,
who died in 1307, was opened, the body was found so closely wrapped
up in wax-cloth, that one could perfectly distinguish the form of the
hand, and the features of the countenance[886]. The body of Johanna,
mother of Edward the Black Prince, who died in 1359, was also wrapped
up in _cerecloth_; and in like manner the body of Elizabeth Tudor, the
second daughter of Henry VII., was _cered by the wax-chandler_[887].
After the death of George II., the apothecary was allowed one hundred
and fifty-two pounds for fine double wax-cloth, and other articles
necessary to embalm the body[888]. The books found in the grave of
Numa, as we learn from the Roman historians, though they had been
buried more than five hundred years, were, when taken up, so entire,
that they looked as if perfectly new, because they had been closely
surrounded with wax-candles. Wax-cloth it is probable was not then
known at Rome[889].
In those centuries usually called the middle ages, I find no traces of
collections of this nature, except in the treasuries of emperors, kings
and princes, where, besides articles of great value, curiosities of
art, antiquities and relics, one sometimes found scarce and singular
foreign animals, which were dried and preserved. Such objects were
to be seen in the old treasury at Vienna; and in that of St. Denis
was exhibited the claw of a griffin, sent by the king of Persia to
Charlemagne; the teeth of the hippopotamus, and other things of the
like kind[890]. In these collections the number of the rarities
always increased in proportion as a taste for natural history became
more prevalent, and as the extension of commerce afforded better
opportunities for procuring the productions of remote countries.
Menageries were established to add to the magnificence of courts, and
the stuffed skins of rare animals were hung up as memorials of their
having existed. Public libraries also were made receptacles for such
natural curiosities as were from time to time presented to them; and as
in universities the faculty of medicine had a hall appropriated for the
dissection of human bodies, curiosities from the animal kingdom were
collected there also by degrees; and it is probable that the professors
of anatomy first made attempts to preserve different parts of animals
in spirit of wine, as they were obliged to keep them by them for the
use of their pupils; and because in old times dead bodies were not
given up to them as at present, and were more difficult to be obtained.
At a later period collections of natural curiosities began to be formed
by private persons. The object of them at first appears to have been
rather to gratify the sight than to improve the understanding; and
they contained more rarities of art, valuable pieces of workmanship
and antiquities, than productions of nature. It is certain that such
collections were first made in places where many families had been
enriched without much labour by trade and manufactures, and who, it is
likely, might wish to procure to themselves consequence and respect
by expending money in this manner. It is not improbable that such
collections were formed, though not first, as Stetten thinks[891], at
a very early period at Augsburg, and this taste was soon spread into
other opulent cities and states.
Private collections, however, appear for the first time in the
sixteenth century; and there is no doubt that they were formed by every
learned man who at that period applied to the study of natural history.
Among these were Hen. Cor. Agrippa of Nettesheim; Nic. Monardes,
Paracelsus, Val. Cordus[892], Hier. Cardan, Matthiolus, 1577; Conrad
Gesner, George Agricola, 1555[893]; Pet. Bellon, 1564; W. Rondelet,
1566; Thurneisser[894]; Abraham Ortelius, 1598[895]; and many others.
That such collections were formed also in England[896] during the above
century, is proved by the catalogue which Hakluyt used for his works.
The oldest catalogues of private collections which I remember, are the
following: Samuel Quickelberg, a physician from Antwerp, who about the
year 1553 resided at Ingolstadt, and was much esteemed by the duke
of Bavaria, published in quarto at Munich in 1565, Inscriptiones vel
Tituli Theatri Amplissimi, complectentis Rerum Universitatis singulas
Materias et Imagines. This pamphlet contained only the plan of a large
work, in which he intended to give a description of all the rarities
of nature and art. I have never had an opportunity of seeing it. I am
acquainted only with a copious extract from it, which induces me to
doubt whether Walch was right in giving it out as a catalogue of the
author’s collection[897].
The same year, 1565, John Kentmann, a learned physician in Torgau, sent
a catalogue of his collection, which consisted principally of minerals
and shells, to Conrad Gesner, who caused it to be printed[898].
The order observed in it is principally borrowed from Agricola.
This collection, however, was not extensive. It was contained in a
cabinet composed of thirteen drawers, each divided lengthwise into
two partitions, and the number of the articles, among which, besides
minerals, there were various productions found in mines and marine
bodies, amounted to about sixteen hundred. It must however have been
considerable for that period, as the collector tells us he laid out
sums in forming it which few could be able to expend[899]; and as
Jacob Fabricius, in order to see it, undertook a journey from Chemnitz
to Torgau[900]. About this time lived in France that ingenious and
intelligent potter, Bernard Palissy, who collected all kinds of natural
and artificial rarities, and published a catalogue of them, which he
made his guide in the study of natural history[901]. Michael Mercati,
a physician, who was contemporary, formed also in Italy a large
collection of natural curiosities, and wrote a very copious description
of them, which was first printed about the beginning of the last
century[902]. The collection of Ferdinand Imperati, a Neapolitan, the
description of which was printed for the first time in 1599, belongs to
the same period; and likewise the large collection of Fran. Calceolari
of Verona, the catalogue of which was first printed in 1584[903]. Walch
and some others mention the catalogue of Brackenhoffer’s collection as
one of the earliest, but it was printed for the first time only in 1677.
[The TRADESCANTS, father and son, are celebrated as being among the
first collectors of rarities in this country, which they deposited
during their lives in a large house situate in the parish of Lambeth.
This became a place of fashionable resort from the curiosities it
contained, and obtained the appellation of Tradescant’s ark. A
catalogue of its contents was printed in 1656 under the title of Museum
Tradescantium. In 1659 this collection was purchased by ELIAS ASHMOLE,
who presented it, together with his books, MSS., and other rarities, to
the University of Oxford in 1683, thereby commencing the now celebrated
ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM.
About the same period, JAMES PETIVER, still celebrated for his curious
and interesting botanical publications, made extensive collections of
natural curiosities, employing captains, ship-surgeons, merchants, &c.
to bring him whatever they could find suitable to his museum, at almost
any cost. He kept up an extensive correspondence in pursuit of this
object, and eventually formed one of the finest collections hitherto
made in England. At his death it was purchased by that celebrated
naturalist, Sir HANS SLOANE, and thus became the foundation of perhaps
the most important collection in Europe--the BRITISH MUSEUM.
Sir Hans Sloane, after having accompanied the duke of Albemarle to
Jamaica as physician, was elected on his return to this country to
succeed Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. He was
born in 1660, and died on the 11th of January, 1752. Having with great
labour and expense during the course of his long life collected a rich
cabinet of medals, objects of natural history, &c., and a valuable
library of books and MSS., he bequeathed the whole to the public on
condition that the sum of £20,000 should be paid to his executors,
being little more than the intrinsic value of the medals, metallic
ores and precious stones comprised in his collection. Parliament
fulfilled the terms of the legacy, and in 1753 an act was passed “for
the purchase of the museum or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart.
and of the Harleian collection of MSS., and for procuring one general
repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the
said collection, and of the Cottonian library and additions thereto.”
Such was the commencement of the British Museum, every department of
which has since been vastly augmented. The printed books alone occupy
TEN MILES of SHELF, and owing to our connexions with every part of the
globe, it vies in the variety and number of objects of natural history
with the most celebrated museums of the world. The interest taken in
these collections by the public is evident from the number of persons
who visited them from Christmas 1844 to Christmas 1845, amounting to no
less than 685,614.
Nor should we omit to mention the collection of curiosities, &c. formed
by JAMES SALTER, more commonly known by the name of Don Saltero.
They were exhibited to the public at his Coffee-house, Cheyne-Walk,
Chelsea, which was first opened about the year 1695. It was a very
mixed collection of saints’ bones, models, carved ivory, and objects
of natural history. The following announcement, printed in the Weekly
Journal for June 22, 1723, may be regarded as containing the most
positive and authentic information concerning this establishment,
inasmuch as it appears to have been sanctioned by the proprietor
himself.
SIR.--Fifty years since to Chelsea Great,--
From Rodman, on the Irish Main,--
I stroll’d, with maggots in my pate,
Where, much improved, they still remain.
Through various employs I’ve past,--
A scraper, virtuos’, projector,
Tooth-drawer, trimmer,--and at last
I’m now a gim-crack-whim collector.
Monsters of all sorts here are seen,
Strange things in nature as they grew so:
Some relicks of the Sheba Queen,
And fragments of the famed Bob Crusoe.
Knick-knacks, too, dangle round the wall,
Some in glass-cases, some on shelf;
But, what’s the rarest sight of all,
Your humble servant shows Himself.
On this my chiefest hope depends,
Now, if you will my cause espouse,
In journals pray direct your friends
To my Museum--Coffee-house.
And, in requital for the timely favour,
I’ll gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver:
Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tarry,
And you shine bright as I do,--Marry! shall ye
Freely consult your Revelation--Molly,
Nor shall one jealous thought a huff,
For she has taught me manners long enough.
_Chelsea Knackatory._ DON SALTERO.
A fine engraving of Salter’s house, with a description and catalogue
of his collection, will be found in Smith’s Historical and Literary
Curiosities.]