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...of scenery, the splendid & strictly correct antique costumes, all taken from the best works & models, — the excellent grouping of every scene, the care with which every trifle was attended to, — made it a unique performance. There was very appropriate music, composed by a Mr Hatton. Parts were touching beyond belief, & we came back deeply impressed & enchanted....

...work on his Catalogus Plantarum, which was eventually published in 1696. Over the next fifty years Sloane's collections grew enormously to fill a large part of his house and attracted a stream of distinguished figures. One in particular, Carl Linnaeus, was to use Sloane's texts and drawings as the basis for descriptions of new species. When Sir Hans Sloane died in 1753 he...