Chelsea in the olden & present times / by George Bryan.

  • Bryan, George
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chelsea in the olden & present times / by George Bryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    123/240 (page 111)
    A catalogue of the whole was printed, with the names of the donors affixed; and under the management of skilful hands this collection could not have failed to produce ample remuneration and profit. Such collections, aided by those of Tradescant, Ashmole, and Thoresby, cherished the infancy of science, and should not be depreciated now, as the playthings of a boy are scorned after he has arrived at manhood. Mr. Pennant’s ancestor, who lived at Chelsea, often took his great nephew, Mr. Pennant’s father, to the coffee-house, where he used to see poor Richard Cromwell, a little and very neat old man, with a most placid countenance, the effect of his innocent and unambitious life. He imagines this was Don Saltern’s coffee-house, to which he was a bene- factor, and has the honour of having his name mentioned in the collection. Mr. Pennant, when a boy, saw “ his uncle’s gift to the great Saltero,” which was “ a lignified hog.” What Mr. Pennant thus facetiously denominates, is called, in the edition of Saltern’s catalo^e that we have seen, “ a piece of a root of a tree that grew in the shape of an hog.” He feared this matchless curiosity was lost; at least, it is omitted in the last, or forty- seventh edition of the catalogue. What author, except Mr. Pennant, can flatter himself with delivering his works down to posterity in impressions so nu- merous as the labours of Don Saltero ? The name of Don Saltero made its first appearance in the newspaper, June 22nd, 1723 ; whence the following account of himself and his rarities is extracted. “ Sir, fifty years since to Chelsea p:reat. From Rodman, on the Irish main, I stroll’d, and maggots in my pate, Where, much improv’d, they still remain. Through various employes I’ve past, A scraper, virtues’, projeclor. Tooth drawer, tiimmer, and at last I’m now a gimeraok-whim collector. * Pennant’s History of Whitford and Hollywell, p. 16.