Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merret, Christopher

by George Simonds Boulger

MERRET or MERRETT, CHRISTOPHER (1614–1695), physician and miscellaneous writer, son of Christopher Merret, was born at Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, on 16 Feb. 1614. In 1631 he was admitted a student of Gloucester Hall, Oxford, and removed to Oriel College about 1633. He graduated B.A. in January 1635, and then, returning to Gloucester Hall, devoted himself to medicine, proceeding M.B. in June 1636, and M.D. in January 1643. Having settled in London, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1651, and in 1654 Gulstonian lecturer. In the same year he was nominated by his friend Dr. William Harvey [q. v.] the first keeper of the library and museum which Harvey had given to the college, and in February of that year Merret had a lease of the college house in Amen Corner at 20l. a year, but the rent was remitted in the following June ‘in recompense for his pains for looking to the new library.’ In his deed of gift in 1656 Harvey allows 20l. a year for a librarian. Merret was censor of the college seven times between 1657 and 1670, and is stated by Wood to have come ‘into considerable practice.’

William How's ‘Phytologia’ being out of print, Merret was requested to prepare a book to replace it. Detained in London by his profession, he employed Thomas Willisel [q. v.] for five summers to collect plants for him, and purchased eight hundred figures, which Thomas Johnson [q. v.] had had engraved. These plates are in the British Museum Library (press-mark 441. i. 6), without title-page, but catalogued as ‘Plants: a Collection of Figures, with MS. notes by C. Merrett. London, 1670, fol.;’ and a note in the book by ‘Robert Gray, M.D.,’ says that the figures were executed for a new herbal which Johnson had intended to issue. Merret's work was entitled ‘Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum, continens Vegetabilia, Animalia, et Fossilia,’ a duodecimo. It was apparently printed in 1666; but the first impression was probably destroyed, either at the printer's or in his own house, in the great fire. Most copies are dated 1667. The zoological and mineralogical parts of this work are little more than lists of names, while the botanical part, though containing over fourteen hundred species, arranged alphabetically, with synonyms from Gerard and Parkinson, and an attempted classification, is so uncritical that it was at once superseded by John Ray's ‘Catalogus’ and synopses.

During the plague Merret retired into the country, and in his absence the college was broken into and its treasure-chest was emptied. Shortly afterwards the house and the bulk of the library was destroyed in the great fire, and the college thereupon resigned their lease of the Amen Corner site to the dean and chapter of St. Paul's for 550l., giving Merret 50l. as compensation, and, having lost their library, thought to dispense with his services. Merret, however, argued that his appointment was for life, and in 1680 applied to the king's bench for a mandamus to the college for his reinstatement. In this he was defeated, and ultimately, in 1681, he was expelled by the college from his fellowship, nominally for non-attendance.

‘He died at his house, near the chapel in Hatton Garden … 19 August, 1695, and was buried twelve feet deep in the church of St. Andrew's, Holborne’ (Wood). Merret was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society, and contributed several papers, chiefly on vegetable physiology, to the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ His plants are preserved in the Sloane Herbarium, and his name is commemorated by the genus Merrettia of Gray, among the unicellular algæ.

Besides the ‘Pinax,’ Merret's chief works were:

1. ‘Catalogus Librorum, Instrumentorum, … in Museo Harveiano,’ 4to, 1660.
2. ‘A Collection of Acts of Parliament, Charters, Trials at Law, and Judges' Opinions, concerning Grants to the College of Physicians, … made by Christopher Merrett, Fellow and Censor,’ 4to, 1660.
3. ‘The Art of Glass … translated into English,’ 8vo, 1662, which was privately reprinted in folio at Middle Hill, Worcestershire, in 1826, and edited by Sir T. Phillipps.
4. ‘An Account of Freezing made in December and January, 1662’ (but containing observations made in 1664, ‘there being no frosts in England in 1663’), annexed to Robert Boyle's ‘New Experiments … touching Cold,’ 8vo, 1665, pp. 1–54; and 2nd edit., 4to, 1683, pp. 1–20.
5. ‘Antonio Neri, De Arte Vitriariâ libri septem et in eosdem … Observationes et Nota,’ 12mo, Amsterdam, 1668, his additions equalling the original work in bulk.
6. ‘A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses committed by Apothecaries, and of the only Remedy thereof by Physicians making their own Medicines,’ 4to, 1669; 2nd edit. 1670.
7. ‘Self-conviction, or an Enumeration of the Absurdities and Railings against the College and Physicians in general,’ 4to, 1670.
8. ‘The Accomplisht Physician, the Honest Apothecary, and the Skilful Chyrurgeon detecting their necessary connexion and dependence on each other. Withall a Discovery of the Quacking Empirick, the Prescribing Surgeon, and the Practising Apothecary,’ 4to, 1670.
9. ‘Some Observations concerning the Ordering of Urines,’ 8vo, 1682.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 430–2; Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of Botany, i. 290–7; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 258.]

G. S. B.