MEMOIR OF SIR HANS SLOANE. WHATEVER may have been the influence of Sir Hans Sloane on the progress of Natural History in his day, (and we believe it to have been considerable,) to the present generation he is most advantageously known as the founder of the British Museum; it may not, therefore, be uninteresting, before relating his personal history, to give some account of the private museums that were in existence previous to his time, especially as some of them merged into his own splendid collection, which ultimately became the property of the public. The first attempt at forming a Museum in Britain, was made early in the seventeenth century, by John Tradescant, a native of Holland, B |