Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/151

 and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 391;, Guide to the Literature of Botany, p. 613). This physic garden was, as Lysons says (Environs of London, i. 330), ‘one of the first established in this kingdom,’ and Tradescant was, as Pulteney says (op. cit. p. 177), ‘the first in this country who made any considerable collection of the subjects of natural history;’ but this statement has been absurdly travestied (, History of Lambeth, p. 142) into one that to him ‘posterity is mainly indebted for the introduction of botany in this kingdom.’ Tradescant was at court in November 1632, making some inquiries about unicorns' horns, which proved to be merely ‘the snout of a fish, yet very precious against poison’ (Court and Times of Charles I, 1848, ii. 189, 504).

The exact date of Tradescant's death is unknown, some months being missing from the Lambeth registers after July 1637; but in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Lambeth, is the entry ‘1637–8. Item, John Tradeskin; ye gret bell and black cloth, 5s. 4d.’ (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 394). His will, dated 8 Jan. 1637, was proved 2 May 1638; and from this it appears that he had one child, his son John [q. v.], and two grandchildren, John and Frances; that he owned some houses in Long Acre and Covent Garden, and some leasehold property at Woodham Walter, Essex; and that his son was residuary legatee, with the proviso that if he desired to part with the ‘cabinet of rarities’ he should offer it to ‘the Prince’ (ib. 1st ser. vii. 295). Tradescant was buried to the south-east of Lambeth church.

There are three unsigned and undated portraits of the elder Tradescant in the Ashmolean collection at Oxford, all in oil. One is a three-quarter-length in a medallion surrounded by fruits, flowers, and roots; another is taken immediately after death; and the third, a miniature, may possibly be by [q. v.] These portraits, and those of the younger Tradescant, have been strangely inscribed ‘Sr John Tradescant’ in gilt letters over their varnish, probably by Robert Plot [q. v.], first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. The valuable engraved portrait by Hollar appeared in the younger Tradescant's ‘Museum Tradescantianum’ in 1656. The original copper-plate is preserved in the Bodleian Library. It was copied by N. Smith in 1793, in a plate issued with Lysons's ‘Surrey,’ Ducarel's ‘Appendix to the History of Lambeth,’ and the third edition of Pennant's ‘London.’ An outline copy appears in Thomas Allen's ‘History of Lambeth’ in 1827, and a fine lithograph by Malevsky in von Hamel's ‘Tradescant der ältere in Russland,’ 1847. An escutcheon of Tradescant's arms, azure, on a bend or, three fleurs-de-lys, as engraved in the ‘Museum,’ is in the Ashmolean Collection.

Linné adopted, from the ‘Flora Jenensis’ of Ruppius (1718), the name Tradescantia for the ‘Ephemerum virginianum’ or spiderwort, a garden favourite, which Tradescant introduced from Virginia.

[Works cited above.]  TRADESCANT, JOHN (1608–1662), traveller and gardener, son of John Tradescant (d. 1637?) [q. v.], was born at Meopham, Kent, on 4 Aug. 1608 (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 266). In 1637 he was in Virginia ‘gathering all varieties of flowers, plants, shells, &c.,’ for the collection at Lambeth (, Genesis of the United States, p. 1032). He appears from his epitaph to have succeeded his father as gardener to Queen Henrietta Maria. In 1650 he seems first to have made the acquaintance of Elias Ashmole, who records in his ‘Diary’ that in that year he, with his wife and Dr. Thomas Wharton [q. v.], visited Tradescant at South Lambeth, and that in the summer of 1652 he and his wife ‘tabled at Mr. Tredescants.’ In 1656 Tradescant published his ‘Museum Tradescantianum: or a Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth, near London,’ dedicated to the president and fellows of the College of Physicians. Probably the book had been printed some time before, since in the preface the writer says: ‘About three years ago … I was resolved to take a catalogue of those rarities and curiosities which my father had sedulously collected. … Presently thereupon my onely son died,’ in 1652 (, Diary). He was assisted by two friends, Ashmole and Wharton. Among the donors to the museum, besides Ashmole and Wharton, figure ‘Sir Dudly Diggs, Sir Nathanael Bacon, Mr. William Curteene, Mr. Charleton, merchant; and Mr. George Thomasin;’ and among the visitors those of Charles I and his queen, Robert and William Cecil, earls of Salisbury, George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, and Archbishop Laud. The frontispiece, consisting of the Tradescant arms, is followed by Hollar's portraits of the two Tradescants. The book, which comprises 179 pages (12mo), contains lists of birds, quadrupeds, fish, shells, insects, minerals, fruits, war instruments, habits, utensils, coins, and medals, followed by a catalogue in English and Latin of the plants in the garden. ‘The wonderful variety and incongruous juxtaposition of the objects,’ says Sir William Flower (Essays on Museums, 1898, pp. 4, 5), ‘make the catalogue very amusing