THE PHYSIC GARDEN 97 Her near neighbour, Mrs Mary Astell, was a striking contrast to the brilliant Hortense. She was a very intellectual and able woman, one of the pioneers in the movement for the higher education of her sex. In her writings she pointed at the Duchess of Mazarin as a warning of the doom decreed to beauty and to wit when shackled in slavery to man, and thereby brought down on her head many jibes and sneers from Smollett, Swift, and others, who were residents in Chelsea. The garden of the Apothecaries' Company (or Physic Garden) also attracts me, with its high railings and gate, through which I have often seen little children gazing wistfully. It is the oldest garden of the kind in England, and was made over to the Apothecaries' Company by Sir Hans Sloane in 1722, on condition that "it should at all times be continued a physic garden, for the manifestation of the power and wisdom and goodness of God in creation, and that the apprentices might learn to distinguish good and useful plants from hurtful ones. Sir Hans Sloane was born in Ireland in 1660, and came over while still a youth to study in London. He will be remembered more especially as being the founder of the British Museum; but his name is still revered in Chelsea. A marble 98 FAMILIAR LONDON statue by Rysbach stands in the middle of the Physic Garden, and was erected to his memory by the Company, "with grateful hearts and general consent," in 1737. Of the four cedar trees planted in 1683, the first cedars brought to England, the last, black and gaunt and grim, was cut down in March 1904. Two were cut down in 1771, their timber, though decayed, realising £23; the third died in 1878. V BATTERSEA FIELDS-THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS THE CHARTER HOUSE- -COLONEL NEWCOME BATTERSEA PARK faces the Physic Garden from the opposite side of the river. The old Battersea Fields were low, flat, damp, and (I fancy) treeless. They were crossed by paths raised above the level; but at no time of the year could Battersea Fields have looked other than dreary, and in winter they must have looked inexpressibly so. There were certain historical associations connected with them. Here, for example, the Duke of Wellington fought a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea in 1829. Close to the river bank was an enclosure which was called the Subscription Ground; here the subscribers came to shoot pigeons. The Battersea of that day has happily changed entirely. A beautiful park covers the Subscription Ground, together with most of the flat and dreary fields. It is a sight |