11th July, 1844, of an hospital for consumption and diseases of
the chest, and which was speedily surrounded by houses on all sides;
probably a circumstance not contemplated at the time the ground was
secured.

The botanical garden of Mr. Curtis, as a public resort for study, was
continued at Brompton until 1808, when the lease of the land being nearly
expired, Mr. Salisbury, who in 1792 became his pupil, and in 1798 his
partner in this horticultural speculation, removed the establishment to
the vacant space of ground now inclosed between Sloane Street and Cadogan
Place, where Mr. Salisbury's undertaking failed. A plan of the gardens
there, as arranged by him, was published in the 'Gentleman's Magazine'
for August, 1810. {85}

Mr. Curtis, whose death has been already mentioned, was the son of a
tanner, and was born at Alton, in Hampshire, in 1746. He was bound
apprentice to his grandfather, a quaker apothecary of that town, whose
house was contiguous to the Crown Inn, where the botanical knowledge of
John Lagg, the hostler, seems to have excited rivalry in the breast of
young Curtis. In the course of events he became assistant to Mr. Thomas
Talwin, an apothecary in Gracechurch Street, of the same religious
persuasion as his grandfather, and succeeded Mr. Talwin in his business.
Mr. Curtis's love of botanical science, however, increased with his
knowledge. He connected with it the study of entomology, by printing, in
1771, 'Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Insects,' and in the
following year a translation of the 'Fundamenta Entomologiae' of
Linnaeus. At this time he rented a very small garden for the cultivation
of British plants, "near the Grange Road, at the bottom of Bermondsey
Street," and here it was that he conceived the design of publishing his
great work, 'The Flora Londinensis.'

"The Grange Road Garden was soon found too small for his extensive
ideas. He, therefore, took a larger piece of ground in Lambeth
Marsh, where he soon assembled the largest collection of British
plants ever brought together into one place. But there was something
uncongenial in the air of this place, which made it extremely
difficult to preserve sea plants and many of the rare annuals which
are adapted to an elevated situation,--_an evil rendered worse every
year by the increased number of buildings around_. This led his
active mind, ever anxious for improvement, to inquire for a