Note 49 — Chapter VI · THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM.

Dr. Arthur Charlett’s long and intimate correspondence with Sir Hans Sloane began in this year (1696), and continued without interruption until 1720. It has much interest, and fills MS. Sloane 4040, from f. 193 to f. 285. That with John Chamberlayne was of nearly equal duration, and is preserved in the same volume (ff. 100–167). The correspondence with James Bobart contains much valuable material for the history of botanical study in England, and is preserved in MS. Sloane, 4037 (ff. 158–185). It began in 1685, and was continued until Bobart’s death, in 1716. Still more curious is the correspondence with John Burnet (1722–1738), who was originally a surgeon in the service of the East India Company, and afterwards Surgeon to the King of Spain. Burnet’s letters to Sloane, written from Madrid, contain valuable illustrations of Spanish society and manners as they were in the first half of the Eighteenth Century. This correspondence is in MS. Sloane, 4039.