Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/391

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maica. She had one son, Hans, who died an infant, and three daughters, of whom Mary also died an infant. Sarah married George Stanley, while Elizabeth, who married Colonel Charles (afterwards second Baron) Cadogan, carried much of Sloane's property into that family. Such names on the Cadogans' London estate as Sloane Street and Sloane Square and Hans Place and Hans Road preserve Sir Hans Sloane's memory (Beaver, Memorials of Old Chelsea, 1892, pp. 89 sq.).

Sloane's taste for natural history specimens, for manuscripts, and for books is commemorated by Pope in his lines

    And books for Mead and butterflies for Sloane

(Moral Epistles, iv. 10); and

    Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain

(Satires, viii. 30). More contemptuous is the allusion of Young to

    Sloane—the foremost toyman of his time

(Satires, iv. 113 sq.). His natural taste for collecting seems to have been stimulated by his friend William Courten, and Evelyn mentions his curiosities as early as April 1691. He acquired Courten's valuable cabinets on his death in 1702. Sloane's whole collection was moved to Chelsea in 1742, and a very interesting account of it is given in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1748, pp. 301–2). On 20 July 1749 he made a will bequeathing his collections to the nation, on condition that 20,000l. should be paid to his family. The first cost of the whole had been over 50,000l. In June 1753 an act of parliament was passed accepting the gift and appointing trustees to manage the collection. One of the trustees nominated by Sloane was Horace Walpole, who gave a somewhat irreverent account of the museum to Sir Horace Mann on 14 Feb. 1753. In 1754 the trustees purchased Montague House and removed the collections to it (together with the Cottonian Collection and the Harleian MSS.), and thus the noble collection of books and specimens now known as the British Museum was founded (cf. Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce; Harley, Edward, second Earl of Oxford; Courten, William; and see Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, i. 440). The Sloane manuscripts contain letters and notes by most of the chief physicians of the century preceding Sloane's death, and must always be one of the main sources of medical history in England from the time of Charles II to that of George II. Ayscough's inexact catalogue, containing more than four thousand entries, has prevented these papers from being thoroughly studied, but the whole collection has lately been examined by Mr. Edward Scott, keeper of the manuscripts at the British Museum, who published a full index to the Sloane MSS. in 1904. Sloane also presented a large number of books to the Bodleian (Macray, Annals, p. 120), together with a portrait of himself in oils.

A portrait by Stephen Slaughter [q. v.], painted in 1736, was transferred from the British Museum to the National Portrait Gallery in June 1879. A portrait by Kneller belongs to the Royal Society; and a portrait, engraved by Lizars after another portrait by Kneller, was prefixed to the memoir of Sloane in Jardine's ‘Naturalist's Library’ (ix. 17–92). Sloane's portrait, by Thomas Murray, hangs in the dining-room of the College of Physicians, and shows him to have been tall and well formed, with a wise expression, but little colour in his face. A statue of Sloane, by Rysbrack, erected in 1748, is in the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea.

[Sloane MSS. in British Museum, esp. 3984 and 4241; copy of pedigree in British Museum, entered by order of chapter of College of Arms, 5 May 1726; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 460; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society; Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, 1848, i. 450; Pepys's Diary; Hooker's Journal of Sir Joseph Banks.

N. M.


SLOPER, EDWARD HUGH LINDSAY (1826–1887), musician, was born in London on 14 June 1826. Until fourteen years old he studied the pianoforte in London under Moscheles, when he went first to Aloys Schmitt at Frankfort, and later to Vollweiler and Boisselot at Heidelberg and Paris, respectively. He remained in Paris till 1846, when he returned to London, and appeared occasionally as a pianist at the concerts of the Musical Union (1846) and the Philharmonic Society (1849), of which he subsequently became a member. As his teaching connection grew, his public appearances waned, and ultimately he devoted himself entirely to teaching, for which his services were in constant demand. Sloper was a prolific composer, chiefly for the pianoforte, and a list of his works occupies thirty pages in the British Museum Music Catalogue. They include a sonata for violin and piano, twenty-four studies op. 3, twelve studies op. 13, a tutor and technical guide for the pianoforte, but none of his publications are of moment. Sloper died in London on 3 July 1887.

[Hogarth's Philharmonic Society, 1862; Private information.]

R. H. L.


SMALBROKE, RICHARD, D.D. (1672–1749), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, son of Samuel Smalbroke (d. 21 May 1701) of