Letter 3642

Rose Fuller to Hans Sloane – July 30, 1729


Item info

Date: July 30, 1729
Author: Rose Fuller
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4050
Folio: ff. 160-161



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Transcription

Fuller visited Amsterdam and the two men Sloane to whom had sent books. Seba was especially happy to receive Fuller. Seba has ‘a very fine collection of Serpents and Lizards and other reptiles and a pretty many other Animals’. He also has a great collection of bezoars, but no precious stones. There are three large pieces of amber ‘larger than my fist’ and a great number of other curious things. Fuller also visited Mr Ruysch and saw ‘his preparations’, which were not as good as those found in England. He suggests that Mr Ranby’s are better. Ruysch was working on comparative anatomy between animals and plants at the time. Fuller wanted to ask questions about the preparations, but Ruysch was ‘exceeding[ly] deaf and allmost blind’. The preparations were not like those of Mr St Andre, who painted them. Ruysch wanted Fuller to pass his thanks on to Sloane for everything he has sent. Fuller received word that Sloane is ‘out of order’, but by the same letter he was informed that Sloane is ‘on the mending hand, and allmost recover’d’. Fuller thanks Sloane for ensuring that his brother’s call for subscriptions was successful. Roser Fuller (1708-1777) was a politician, gun-founder and landowner. He was Sir Hans Sloane’s grandson. Fuller studied medicine at Cambridge from 1725 to 1728 and Leiden from 1729 to 1732 and went to Jamaica in 1733 to supervise the family estates. He served in the Jamaican assembly for some time before returning to England in 1755. Fuller was elected MP for Rye in 1768 (J. S. Hodgkinson, ‘Fuller family (per. c.1650–1803)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47494, accessed 14 Aug 2014]).




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