(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 286.)
The family of the Tradescants is involved in considerable obscurity, and
the period of the arrival of the first of that name in England is not, for
a certainty, known. There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants at one
time in this country--grandfather, father, and son. John Tradescant (or
Tradeskin, as he was generally called by his contemporaries) the elder was,
according to Anthony Wood, a Fleming or a Dutchman. He probably came to
England about the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, or in the beginning
of that of James the First. He is reported to have been a great traveller,
and to have previously visited Barbary, Greece, Egypt, and other Eastern
countries. Upon his first arrival here he is said to have been successively
gardener to the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, Lord Weston, the Duke of
Buckingham, and other noblemen of distinction. In these situations he
remained until the office of royal gardener was bestowed upon him in 1629.
To John Tradescant the elder, posterity is mainly indebted for the
introduction of botany in this kingdom. "He, by great industry, made it
manifest that there is scarcely any plant existing in the known world, that
will not, with proper care, thrive in our climate." In a visit made by Sir
W. Watson and Dr. Mitchell to Tradescant's garden in 1749, an account of
which is inserted in the _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xlvi. p. 160.,
it appears that it had been many years totally neglected, and the house
belonging to it empty and ruined; but though the garden was quite covered
with weeds, there remained among them manifest footsteps of its founder.
They found there the _Borago latifolia sempervivens_ of Caspar Bauhine;
_Polygonatum vulgare latifolium_, C.B.; _Aristolochia clematitis recta_,
C.B.; and the _Dracontium_ of Dodoens. There were then remaining two trees
of the _Arbutus_, which from their being so long used to our winters, did
not suffer from the severe cold of 1739-40, when most of their kind were
killed in England. In the orchard there was a tree of the _Rhamnus
catharticus_, about twenty feet high, and nearly a foot in diameter. There
are at present no traces of this garden remaining.
In the Ashmolean Library is preserved (No. 1461.) a folio manuscript
(probably in the handwriting of the elder Tradescant) which purports to be
"The Tradescants' Orchard, illustrated in sixty-five coloured drawings of
fruits, exhibiting various kinds of the apple, cherry, damson, date, {354}
gooseberry, peares, peaches, plums, nectarines, grape, Hasell-nutt, quince,
strawberry, with the times of their ripening."
Old John Tradescant died in the year 1652, at which period he was probably
far advanced in years, leaving behind him a son (also of the same name) who
seems to have inherited his father's talents and enthusiasm. There is a
tradition that John Tradescant the younger entered himself on board a
privateer going against the Algerines, that he might have an opportunity of
bringing apricot-trees from that country. He is known to have taken a
voyage to Virginia, whence he returned with many new plants. The two
Tradescants were the means of introducing a variety of curious species into
this kingdom, several of which bore their name. Tradescants' _Spiderwort_
and _Aster_ are well known to this day, and Linnaeus has immortalised them
among the botanists by making a new genus under their names of the
_Spiderwort_, which had been before called _Ephemeron_.
When the elder Tradescant first settled in England, he formed a curious
collection of natural history, coins, medals, and a great variety of
"uncommon rarities." A catalogue of them was published in 12mo. in the year
1656, by his son, under the name of _Museum Tradescantianum_; to which are
prefixed portraits, both of the father and son, by Hollar. This Museum or
"Ark," as it was termed, was frequently visited by persons of rank, who
became benefactors thereto; among these were Charles the First, Henrietta
Maria (his queen), Archbishop Laud, George Duke of Buckingham, Robert and
William Cecil, Earls of Salisbury, and many other persons of distinction:
among them also appears the philosophic John Evelyn, who in his _Diary_ has
the following notice:
"Sept. 17, 1657, I went to see Sir Robert Needham, at Lambeth, a
relation of mine, and thence to John Tradescant's museum."
"Thus John Tradeskin starves our wondering eyes
By boxing up his new-found rarities."
Ashmole, in his _Diary_ (first published by Charles Burman in 1717), has
three significant entries relating to the subject of our notice, which I
transcribe _verbatim_:
"Decem. 12, 1659. Mr. Tredescant and his wife told me they had been
long considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when
they died, and at last had resolved to give it unto me.
"April 22, 1662. Mr. John Tredescant died.
"May 30, 1662. This Easter term I preferred a bill in Chancery against
Mrs. Tredescant, for the rarities her husband had settled on me."
The success of Ashmole's suit is well known; but the whole transaction
reflects anything but honour upon his name. The loss of her husband's
treasures probably preyed upon the mind of Mrs. Tradescant; for in the
_Diary_ before quoted, under April 4, 1678, Ashmole says:
"My wife told me that Mrs. Tradescant was found drowned in her pond.
She was drowned the day before at noon, as appears by some
circumstance."
This was the same Hesther Tradescant who erected the Tradescant monument in
Lambeth churchyard. She was buried in the vault where her husband and his
son John (who "died in his spring") had been formerly laid.
The table monument to the memory of the Tradescants was erected in 1662.
The sculptures on the four sides are as follows, viz. on the _north_, a
crocodile, shells, &c., and a view of some Egyptian buildings; on the
_south_, broken columns, Corinthian capitals, &c., supposed to be ruins in
Greece, or some Eastern country; on the _east_, Tradescant's arms, on a
bend three fleurs-de-lys, impaling a lion passant; on the _west_, a hydra,
and under it a skull; various figures of trees, &c., in relievo, adorn the
four corners of the tomb; over it is placed a handsome tablet of black
marble. The monument, by the contribution of some friends to their memory,
was in the year 1773 repaired, and (according to Sir John Hawkins) the
following lines, "_formerly_ intended for an epitaph, inserted thereon."
Other authorities say that they were merely _restored_.
"Know, stranger, ere thou pass beneath this stone,
Lye John Tradescant, grandsire, father, son;
The last dy'd in his spring; the other two
Liv'd till they had travell'd Art and Nature through,
As by their choice collections may appear,
Of what is rare, in land, in sea, in air;
Whilst they (as Homer's _Iliad_ in a nut)
A world of wonders in one closet shut;
These famous antiquarians that had been
_Both Gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen_,
Transplanted now themselves, sleep here; and when
Angels shall with their trumpets waken men,
And fire shall purge the world, these hence shall rise,
And change this garden for a Paradise."
A number of important errors concerning this once celebrated family have
been made by different writers. Sir John Hawkins, in a note to his edition
of Walton's _Angler_ (edit. 1792, p. 24.), says:
"There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants, grandfather, father,
and son: the son is the person here meant: the two former were
gardeners to Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to King Charles I."
The epitaph above quoted satisfactorily proves, I think, that the
Tradescants were never gardeners to the maiden Queen. "The rose and lily
queen" was certainly Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First. I
have now before me (from the cabinet of a friend) a small silver medal
struck to commemorate the marriage of Charles the First. It has on the
obverse the busts of Charles and Henrietta, the sun shining from the clouds
above {355} them: the inscription is CH: MAG: ET: HEN: MA: BRIT: REX: ET:
REG. The reverse contains in the field, Cupid mixing _lilies with roses_;
the legend being FVNDIT: AMOR: LILIA: MIXTA: ROSIS. In the exergue is the
date 1625. The Tradescant mentioned by Walton in 1653 was the _second_ of
that name, not the son, as stated by Sir John Hawkins.
The editor of the last edition of Evelyn's _Diary_ (vol. ii. p. 414.) says,
speaking of the Tradescants:
"They were all eminent gardeners, travellers, and collectors of
curiosities. The two first came into this country in the reign of James
I., and the second and third were employed in the Royal Gardens by
Charles I."
Here is a _positive_ statement that the elder Tradescant and his son came
into England in the reign of _James I._ But there is no _proof_ of this
given. It is merely the writer's assertion. At the end of the same note,
speaking of Tradescant's Ark, the editor observes:
"It formed the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and a
catalogue of its contents was printed by the youngest John Tradescant
in 1656, with the title of _Museum Tradescantianum_. He died in 1652."
It was not the _youngest_ John Tradescant that died in 1652, but the
_oldest_, the _grandfather_--the first of that name that settled in
England.
The following is a list of the portraits of the Tradescant family now in
the Ashmolean Museum; both father and son are in these portraits called
_Sir_ John, though it does not appear that either of them was ever
knighted. Mr. Black, in his excellent catalogue of the Ashmolean Library,
also calls the elder Tradescant _Sir_ John. (See p. 1266.)
1. Sir John Tradescant, sen., three-quarter size, ornamented with fruit,
flowers, and garden roots.