Sir Hans Sloane, Baronet (born April 16, 1660, Killyleagh, County Down, Ire.—died Jan. 11, 1753, London, Eng.), British physician and naturalist whose collection of books, manuscripts, and curiosities formed the basis for the British Museum in London.
—The Encyclopaedia Britannica
Elizabeth looked at the copper nameplate beside the impressive door and pulled in her breath. The white stone residence was very grand in the pleasingly symmetrical style that was called Georgian, for the two King Georges. The park behind her—Bloomsbury Square—was also quite grand, with the Duke of Bedford’s mansion on the north side, and just down the way, Montagu House, said to be the grandest private dwelling in all of London. As Dr. Stuart raised the ornate knocker and let it fall, a grand coach-and-four rattled over the cobblestone pavement, bearing a grandly bewigged footman in full livery.
The name on the nameplate was grand, too.
“Sir Hans Sloane?” Elizabeth whispered, not quite believing. Dr. Stuart had not told her whom they were meeting this afternoon. He said only that he had spoken to a patron of his—a wealthy doctor who took a personal pleasure in helping worthy and talented people who interested him.
Elizabeth was awestruck. She would be showing her portfolio to the legendary Dr. Sloane! This gentleman was reputed to have kept the dying Queen Anne alive long enough to allow the Elector of Hanover to scurry over from Saxony and mount the Protestant throne, thereby dashing the hopes of the Jacobite Catholics. The new king, George I, had rewarded the helpful doctor with a baronetcy, while George II not only named him the royal physician but knighted him.
No doubt the honors were deserved. Throughout his long career, Dr. Sloane had shown himself to be a man of achievement. Born in Ireland to a Scots-Irish family, he had an immense botanical curiosity and an avid interest in plants that were novel and strange. At nineteen, he had come to London to study at Apothecaries’ Hall and in the apothecaries’ garden at Chelsea, gaining a wide knowledge of the plants that were the basis of all pharmaceuticals. In his twenties, he had served as the physician to the governor of the faraway island of Jamaica, where he observed the native practice of using an extract of the bark of the cinchona tree (what the French called quinine) to treat the eyes. For stomach ailments, he had observed Jamaican women mixing ground cocoa beans with sugar and milk; when he returned to England he brought with him a recipe for “milk chocolate” and advocated its medicinal use. He was one of the first to inoculate his patients against the smallpox, was a governor of the new Foundling Hospital, and in spite of his fame, still kept a daily free surgery for the poor. But Sir Hans was perhaps best known for the immense collection of curiosities he had assembled from around the globe, a collection that—it was said—rivaled any on earth.
Dr. Stuart lifted a gloved hand to ring the bell. “For many years, I have been privileged to count Sir Hans as a friend and colleague,” he said. “I have explained your circumstance to him, and he is sympathetic. You could find no better, and certainly no more liberal, sponsor.”
Elizabeth straightened her shoulders. “I trust he doesn’t feel that I have come on bended knee,” she said sharply. “I am not begging his charity.” As Alexander’s wife, it was her obligation to do all that she could to save her husband. But not that. Never that.
“He knows that you are a Scotswoman, and Scots never beg.” Dr. Stuart rang the bell more smartly. “I have commended your artistic talents to him and told him why you are eager to apply them just now.”
A few moments later, they were shown into Dr. Sloane’s library, a room the size of a ballroom. It was filled floor to ceiling with bookcases and shelves that were crowded with the strangest assortment of rarities that Elizabeth had ever seen, many of them labeled in a thin, spidery hand.
There was an odd-looking rock studded with tiny gold nodules, a ceremonial cup crafted from a carved nautilus shell, trays of assorted seeds and botanical materials, maps and manuscripts, tobacco pipes in various exotic shapes, a gilded rhinoceros horn, tiny figures carved from whalebone and labeled “Eskimo,” a burning glass, an Indian drum from Virginia, a wooden medicine stick designed to induce vomiting, a rattlesnake’s rattles, birds’ eggs and feathers, glass boxes of beetles, a purse made of asbestos and sold to Sir Hans by a visiting colonial named Benjamin Franklin, and racks of thick green-bound volumes, each labeled Herbarium, containing pages and pages of dried plants collected from all over the earth. A stuffed striped donkey from the Cape of Good Hope sulked in a corner; an amazingly lifelike seven-foot yellow snake from Jamaica was draped over a large mirror, and a brilliantly colored tropical bird with a long tail perched on a chandelier. Above the fireplace mantel hung a silver-and-iridescent-blue fish as long as Elizabeth was tall, with a sword on the end of its nose. The floor was covered with a great variety of rugs, a Polynesian grass mat next to a hand-knotted Persian carpet beside a tiger rug from India, its snarling fangs ready to snap at Elizabeth’s toes.
“My gracious,” Elizabeth murmured, drawing back her feet. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised to discover a unicorn somewhere in this clutter.”
Dr. Stuart chuckled. “Sir Hans finds himself interested in anything that he has never seen before.” He cast a quizzical glance around the room. “It all rather wants organizing, doesn’t it?”
It did indeed want organizing. It was such an extraordinary jumble of oddities that Elizabeth felt she was in a curiosity-dealer’s shop. But she had always been deeply interested in the natural world, and there was more than enough here to hold her attention. She was studying a page in one of the herbariums when a short, portly gentleman wearing a full brown wig bustled into the room.
“Ah, my dear Stuart,” he said with evident satisfaction. “How good to see you.” In his seventies, he was dressed in brown breeches with a dark brown velvet coat, a lace-trimmed shirt, a ruffled cravat, and a heavy gold watch chain laden with gold seals draped across an embroidered waistcoat. His face was roundish, almost cherubic, and the gold-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose gave him a professorial look.
Elizabeth regarded him with curiosity. His was a face that she would enjoy painting. She hoped he would agree to commission her to do his portrait—which was, after all, the purpose of this visit. She would paint him in the midst of his collection, an object or two in his hands. That African drum perhaps, or the rat skeleton over there. And the stuffed bird perched on his shoulder.
At the sight of Elizabeth, a smile relieved the severity of his face and he bowed over her hand as Dr. Stuart introduced them.
“Ah, yes,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “And this is the Scotswoman you told me about, Stuart.” He bowed again. “I understand, Mrs. Blackwell, that you are an artist. And I see that you have brought something to show me.” He held out his hand for the portfolio she was carrying. “May I? I am most interested.”
“Oh, indeed, sir,” she said. Her heart thudding, she placed the portfolio in his hand.
He took it, gestured at chairs for his guests, and seated himself at a small table. For the next quarter hour, while she fidgeted, he leafed through her drawings. She had arranged her work so that the portraits would be seen first and the landscapes and botanical drawings after. He glanced rapidly through her portfolio, then, having a chatty conversation with himself, went back to examine her drawings of plants.
“Quite nice, quite nice, indeed,” he mused, turning up a drawing of rosemary. “One of my favorite herbs, especially good with a joint of roast lamb. And look here—hemlock! Hemlock, the herb of Socrates and his choice for a noble death. The rest of us should have his courage.” He held out the drawing, admiring it. “Delightfully pictured in all its parts, and very like. So accurately done that one could use this as a guide to instruct the ill-informed to distinguish it from parsley.”
“Ah, yes,” Dr. Stuart said, as if Sir Hans’ remarks were directed at him. “I heard yesterday that another succumbed to hemlock, thinking it parsley.” He shook his head. “’Tis ever thus.”
“And need not be.” Sir Hans put down Elizabeth’s hemlock and turned over another drawing. “What is this? Oh, to be sure. Ladies’ mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris—from the Arabic ‘alkemelych,’ or alchemist—a name bestowed on the plant by old writers for its near-magical properties in the treatment of women’s gynecological problems. We have a specimen in the garden at Chelsea. Tragus describes it in his illustrated Kreuter Buch of 1539, but his woodcut is not nearly so accurate as this drawing.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Where did you find the plant, my dear?”
“On a wild hillside, sir,” Elizabeth said, “outside of Aberdeen. I have always enjoyed botanical excursions. I took my sketchpad with me and drew the plants that interested me most. It helped me to learn their many uses.”
“You are a practicing herbalist, then?”
She laughed a little. “Only an amateur—but a dedicated one, sir.” Early in her life, botany had been her favorite study, and she had imagined passing her days in a quiet cottage somewhere, surrounded by gardens. Marriage to Alexander had spelled the end of that modest dream. It still returned, especially in this last tumultuous year, but with it came the sad understanding that it could never be.
Sir Hans picked up another of her drawings. “And here . . . why, bless my soul, I believe you have drawn—and, yes, labeled—scurvy grass!” He lowered the paper and peered at her over the top of it. “Scurvy grass, Mrs. Blackwell!” he exclaimed. “Cochlearia officinalis, no less!”
Elizabeth nodded, although she was rather at a loss to explain Sir Hans’ evident excitement. The drawing he was looking at was very simple, done on a long-ago day when she and her sisters had tramped through a seashore salt marsh in a drizzle. It was hastily drawn and not at all pretty. Indeed, it couldn’t be pretty, for the plant was such a commonplace little thing, hiding itself among the marsh grasses like a bird with a broken wing.
She cleared her throat. Thinking that she ought to explain herself, she said, “The drawings of scurvy grass and ladies’ mantle are two of a number I made of our native Scottish herbs.” She paused. “I had it in mind to engrave and print a number of drawings, you see. They might have made a small herbal to be sold through the apothecary shops in Aberdeen. I thought it might be helpful to those with an interest in the many uses of our native plants.”
“An herbal, you say? A book of Scottish herbs?” Sir Hans broke into a wide smile. “And of course it should include scurvy grass, certainly, certainly!” He cocked his head. “The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about a scurvy-like disease which afflicted Roman soldiers in Germany. He recommended what he called Herba britannica, which I believe to be scurvy grass. Also called spoonwort, as I’m sure you know, from the shape of its leaves—not at all grass-like.” He held up Elizabeth’s drawing and waved it triumphantly in the air.
“And you have drawn it to the life! What a talented eye you have! And what a boon a picture like this would be, say, for seafaring ship captains who send sailors ashore to gather this plant so that it may be added to their shipboard diets!” His sentences were studded with exclamation points.
“I am glad you approve,” Elizabeth murmured, allowing herself only the barest ironical tartness. She had hoped that Dr. Stuart’s great friend might commission her to paint himself or members of his household and—much to be hoped—would recommend her to his wide circle of friends. But the man wanted to carry on about scurvy grass. How disappointing!
“Approve? Approve? Why, certainly I approve,” Sir Hans exclaimed with a renewed enthusiasm. “Most certainly!” He turned to glance around him. “Somewhere here, although at the moment I can’t think where, I have a formula sent to me by an old lady who lives in the West Country, in Cornwall, I believe. Yes, yes, in Cornwall. It consists of various plants—water cress, if I recall correctly, as well as scurvy grass, betony, wormwood, and brooklime—pounded together and mixed with white wine, beer, or orange juice. It is said to be an excellent medicine for preventing scurvy. If I can locate it, I will have it copied out for you. I am sure you will find it interesting. Most interesting—especially the use of scurvy grass.”
“I’m sure I shall,” Elizabeth said. By now, she had given up all hope of any help from this man. Perhaps she should set up shop as a street artist right here in Bloomsbury Square, where those who came and went would at least have a few coins in their pockets. She would be as likely to get work from them as she was from Sir Hans.
That gentleman was now leafing quickly through the rest of her drawings of plants, muttering under his breath, holding up first one and then another for a closer look. At last, he satisfied himself, and closed the portfolio. He took off his spectacles, polished them with his cravat, and put them back on again, peering at her.
“When you spoke a moment ago of compiling an herbal, I believe you said that you had it in mind to engrave and print your drawings.” He looked at Dr. Stuart over the tops of his glasses. “May I take it, Stuart, that Mrs. Blackwell is also an engraver?”
“So I understand,” began Dr. Stuart, but Elizabeth, by now quite impatient with both men, spoke up for herself.
“I am, sir. I studied engraving as a girl in Aberdeen. And until my husband was required to close his print shop, I provided engravings for books in his press, which I was most glad to do.” She felt herself flushing and looked down. It was perhaps not wise to tell Sir Hans of the many duties she performed in Alex’s shop—not just engraving, but dealing with customers and suppliers, managing the accounts, and marketing the books. He might think she was part of the reason it failed.
But he appeared to ignore the unfortunate reference and fastened instead on her experience.
“Engraving is a most useful skill for an artist. On one of these shelves, I have the Metamorphosis of Frau Maria Sibylla Merian, a delightful book which includes sixty of her life-size drawings of insects—engraved and also colored by herself. I should be glad to lend it to you, if I can find it. It would serve as an excellent model.”
A model for what? Elizabeth wondered, but she didn’t want to reveal her ignorance. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“I speak of Frau Merian’s work because it seems to me that you have a comparable skill,” Sir Hans said, once again picking up her picture of hemlock. “The gift of close observation and the ability to draw what you see.” He studied it for a moment, pursing his lips. “Dr. Stuart has informed me that you are in search of an undertaking—that is to say, a project by which you might earn some money. This is true?”
“Yes, sir. It is, sir.” She took a deep breath, not certain what Dr. Stuart might have said but wanting to be sure that the full story, however shameful, was told.
“Perhaps you know that my husband is in Newgate gaol for nonpayment of a substantial business debt. Dr. Stuart and his wife have been generous, but my two children and I cannot continue to impose on their hospitality. He has offered the opportunity to train as a midwife. I am grateful and would be glad to do so if there were compensation during the training period.” She drew in her breath and said what she had come to say. “I must support my children and myself and satisfy my husband’s creditors. I was hoping most urgently that—”
“An honorable profession, midwifery.” Sir Hans took out his handkerchief and noisily blew his nose. “I commend it to you. But it is not likely in the near term to provide the funds that you require.” He tucked his handkerchief into his ruffled sleeve and folded his hands across his waistcoat, regarding her. “Therefore, I have a proposal to make. Will you consider it?”
Consider it? She was confused, but she could say only “Yes, of course, sir.”
“Good. Allow me, then, if you please.”
And she listened with a growing amazement while the celebrated Dr. Sloane told her what he had in mind.
And yes, it included scurvy grass.