reading.’ ‘Among “whole birds” is the famous “Dodar from the Island Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big.” This “stuffed Dodo,” of which the head and foot are still preserved in the University Museum of Oxford, was seen by Willughby and Ray, as we learn from their “Ornithology”’ (1678). The collection naturally became famous. Herrick alludes to ‘Tradescant's curious shells’ in an epigram upon Madame Ursly in his ‘Hesperides;’ and Thomas Flatman in some verses ‘To Mr. Sam. Austin of Wadham Col. Oxon. on his most unintelligible Poems,’ writes:
Thus John Tradeskin starves our greedy eyes
By boxing up his new found Rarities
(Poems, ed. 1674 p. 89, ed. 1682 p. 147). On 12 Dec. 1659 Ashmole notes in his ‘Diary:’ ‘Mr. Tredescant and his wife told me they had been long considering upon whom to bestow their Closet of Curiosities when they died, and at last had resolved to give it unto me.’ This is followed by the entry under date 14 Dec.: ‘This Afternoon they gave their Scrivener Instructions to draw a Deed of Gift of the said Closet to me;’ and, under the 16th, ‘5 Hor. 30 Minutes post merid. Mr. Tredescant and His Wife sealed and delivered to me the Deed of Gift of all his Rarities’ (the entry on the subject in Evelyn's Diary, under 17 Sept. 1657, is an erroneous interpolation by a later hand; cf. Bray, Advertisement to his edition of Evelyn, 1850).
Tradescant died on 22 April 1662. He was twice married, his first wife, whose name was Jane, dying in May 1634 (Churchwardens' Account of St. Mary's, Lambeth). She is erroneously described on the existing tomb in Lambeth churchyard as the wife of his father. By her he had two children—Frances, who married Alexander Norman and at the date of her father's death was a widow; and John, born in 1633, died on 11 Sept. 1652, and ‘buried in Lambeth Church Yard by his Grandfather’ (Ashmole, Diary). Tradescant married, secondly, in 1638, Hester Pooks, described as ‘of St. Bride's, London, maiden’ (‘Register of St. Nicholas Cole-Abbey, London,’ quoted in Notes and Queries, 1st ser. viii. 513), by whom he had no issue. In his will, dated 4 April 1661, and proved on 5 May 1662, he makes his wife sole executrix, requests to be ‘interred as neere as can be to my late deceased Father … and my sonne,’ bequeaths 10l. to his daughter Frances Norman, 5s. each to his ‘namesakes Robert Tredescant and Thomas Tredescant of Walberswick,’ and adds, ‘Item, I giue, devize, and bequeath my Closet of Rarities to my dearly beloued wife Hester Tredescant during her naturall Life, and after her decease I giue and bequeath the same to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, to which of them shee shall think fitt at her decease’ (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 367).
Tradescant was buried at the south-east end of the chancel, in Lambeth churchyard, the original tomb being described in Aubrey's ‘Surrey’ (1719, i. 11–12). The rhyming epitaph printed by Aubrey, though intended for the monument, was preserved at Oxford, and not placed upon it (Ducarel, Letter to William Watson, M.D., 1773). In 1773 the tomb, being in a state of decay, was repaired by public subscription, and the epitaph was then added, the lines stating that the monument was erected by Hester Tradescant being omitted (Nichols, Appendix to Ducarel's Hist. of Lambeth, 1785, p. 68). The four sides of the tomb were engraved by Basire from the original drawings, preserved in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge, for the paper by Dr. Ducarel in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ (1773, lxiii. 79–88), these engravings being reprinted in Nichols's ‘History of Lambeth,’ with another plate including copies of the two portraits by Hollar, published in 1793 by N. Smith, and issued also with Lysons's ‘Surrey’ (p. 289) and Pennant's ‘London’ (3rd edit.). In 1853 the existing new tomb was erected by public subscription, from the drawings in the Pepysian Library (Gent. Mag. 1852 i. 377, 1853 i. 518). The top slab of the 1773 tomb was, after some changes of ownership, presented by Colonel North, M.P., to the Ashmolean Museum (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. iii. 512).
In Easter term 1664 Ashmole ‘preferred a Bill in Chancery against Mrs. Tredescant, for the Rarities her Husband had settled on me’ (Diary, 30 May 1662; cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 367). The cause was heard on 18 May 1664 before Lord-chancellor Clarendon, who gave effect to the asserted terms of the deed of gift, adjudging Ashmole to ‘have and enjoy’ the Closett or Collection of Rarities as catalogued in the ‘Museum Tradescantianum,’ ‘subject to the trust for the defendant during her life,’ and appointing Ashmole's two brother-heralds, Sir Edward Bysshe and Sir William Dugdale, with Sir William Glascock, master in chancery, as commissioners to see that everything was forthcoming. Ashmole built a large brick house near Lambeth adjoining that which had been Tradescant's, and records in his diary on 26 Nov. 1674: ‘Mrs. Tredescant being willing to deliver up the rarities to
