Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/131

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

benefactor, let no one move his bones,’ and without his name. The tablet is in the cloisters, and is reproduced in R. B. Johnson's ‘Christ's Hospital’ (p. 142).

St. Amand left his books, coins, and prints to the Bodleian Library, but those which it did not want were to go to Lincoln College. The books, a catalogue of which was drawn up by Alexander Cruden in September 1754, consisted ‘chiefly of the then modern editions of the classics and of the writings of modern Latin scholars;’ many of them had belonged to Arthur Charlett [q. v.] The manuscripts were mainly his notes on Theocritus, Horace, and other poets, and letters and papers relating to the Low Countries. Among them were numerous letters from Italian scholars on his projected Theocritus, and a letter from Jervas on the pictures to be seen at Rome (cf. Coxe, Catalogi Cod. MSS. Bibl. Bodl. Pars prima, 1853, coll. 889–908, and Madan, Western MSS. at the Bodleian Library, pp. 158–9). William Stukeley [q. v.] was one of the executors, and in May 1755 he brought the books to Oxford in twenty-seven cases; the coins and medals followed subsequently (Stukeley, Memoirs, i. 136, ii. 6, iii. 474).

The residue of the estate was bequeathed to Christ's Hospital, together with a miniature set in gold of his grandfather, John St. Amand. The picture was left inalienable, and, if this condition were not complied with, the whole estate was to revert to the university of Oxford. A court was annually held, called ‘The Picture Court,’ when the miniature was formally produced. There was a legend that this painting was a portrait of the Old Pretender.

[Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 425; Gent. Mag. 1754 p. 435, 1801 ii. 599, 1802 i. 493, ii. 599; Trollope's Christ's Hospital, pp. 121–3; Johnson's Christ's Hospital, p. 270; Macray's Bodleian Library, 2nd ed. pp. 252–4.]

W. P. C.


ST. ANDRÉ, NATHANAEL (1680–1776), anatomist, was a native of Switzerland, who is said to have been brought to England in the train of a Jewish family. He earned his living either by fencing or as a dancing-master, and he probably taught French and German, for he was proficient in both languages. He was soon placed with a surgeon of eminence, who made him an anatomist. There is no notice of his apprenticeship among the records of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, and it does not appear that he was ever made free of the company, so that it is probable that he was throughout life an unqualified practitioner, at first protected by court influence. St. André's knowledge of German led George I to appoint him anatomist to the royal household. The patent is dated May 1723, and he was then living in Northumberland Court, near Charing Cross, where he practised his profession, and held the post of local surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, then a dispensary. He published in 1723 a translation of Garengeot's treatise of chirurgical operations, and he was also engaged in delivering public lectures upon anatomy.

Unfortunately for himself, St. André became, in 1726, involved in the imposture of Mary Tofts [q. v.] of Godalming, who professed to be delivered of rabbits. In consequence of the determination shown by Queen Caroline to have the matter thoroughly investigated, Howard the apothecary, who attended Mary Tofts, summoned St. André to see her, and he, taking with him Samuel Molyneux [q. v.], secretary to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George II), reached Godalming on 15 Nov. 1726. St. André was deceived, and believed the truth of the woman's story in all its impossible details. He published a full account of the case, and appended to it a note that ‘the account of the Delivery of the eighteenth Rabbet shall be published by way of Appendix to this Account.’ The king then sent his surgeon, Cyriacus Ahlers, to report upon the case, and the woman was brought to London and lodged at the Bagnio in Leicester Square. The fraud was then exposed by Dr. Douglas and Sir Richard Manningham, M.D., who eventually succeeded in obtaining a confession.

St. André only once presented himself at court after this exposure, and, although he retained his position of anatomist to the king until his death, he never drew the salary. Molyneux was seized with a fit in the House of Commons, and died on 13 April 1728. St. André had been on terms of intimacy with him, and had treated him professionally. Molyneux's wife, Lady Elizabeth, second daughter of Algernon Capel, earl of Essex, left the house with St. André on the night of her husband's death, and was married to him on 17 May 1730 at Heston, near Hounslow in Middlesex. This proceeding caused a second scandal, for it was vehemently suspected that St. André had hastened the death of his friend by poison. There is no reason to believe that Molyneux died from other than natural causes. Nevertheless, St. André and his wife, who was dismissed from her attendance upon Queen Caroline in consequence of her marriage, found it necessary to retire into the country. They moved to Southampton about 1750, and lived