(John), an ingenious naturalist and antiquary, was, according to Anthony Wood, a Fleming or a Dutchman. We are informed by Parkinson, that he had travelled into most parts of Europe, and into Barbary; and from some emblems remaining upon his monument in Lambeth church-yard, it plainly appears that he had visited Greece, Egypt, and other eastern countries. In his travels, he is supposed to have collected, not only plants and seeds, but most of those curiosities of every sort which, after his death, were sold by his son to the famous Elias Ashmole, and deposited in his museum at Oxford. When he first settled in this kingdom cannot, at this distance of time, be ascertained. Perhaps it was at the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or the beginning of that of King James I. His print, engraven by Hollar before the year 1636, which represents him as a person very far advanced in years, seems to countenance this opinion. He lived in a great house at South Lambeth, where his museum was frequently visited by persons of rank, who became benefactors thereto: among these were King Charles I. (to whom he was gardener), Henrietta Maria his Queen, Archbishop Laud, George Duke of Buckingham, Robert and William Cecil, Earls of Salisbury, and many other persons of distinction. John Tradescant may therefore be justly considered as the earliest collector (in this kingdom) of every thing that was curious in natural history, viz. minerals, birds, fishes, insects, &c. He had also a good collection of coins and medals of all sorts, besides a great variety of uncommon rarities. A catalogue of these, published by his son, contains an enumeration of the many plants, shrubs, trees, &c. growing in his garden, which was pretty extensive. Some of these plants are, if not totally extinct, at least become very uncommon, even at this time: though this able man, by his great industry, made it manifest, in the very infancy of botany, that there is scarce any plant extant in the known world that will not, with proper care, thrive in this kingdom.

When his house at South Lambeth, then called Tradescant's Ark, came into Ashmole's possession, he added a noble room to it, and adorned the chimney with his arms, impaling those of Sir William Dugdale, whose daughter was his third wife; where they remain to this day.

It were much to be wished, that the lovers of hotas-Tradescant had visited this once famous garden before, or at least in the beginning of the present century. But this seems to have been totally neglected till the year 1749, when Dr Watson and the late Dr Mitchell favoured the Royal Society with the only account now extant of the remains of Tradescant's garden.

When the death of John Tradescant happened is not known; no mention being made thereof in the register-book of Lambeth church.