30 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
been clothed, and which, had they been bestowed 
upon him when alive, he would have been the first 
to reject, we shall still find him a bright ornament 
to the age in which he lived, and in every way 
entitled to rank in the list of British worthies. 
True it is, that but for the patronage and protection 
of Willughby, he might probably have done little 
‘or nothing in science; and had he not been the 
editor of his patron’s works, his name, as a zoologist, 
would have been far inferior to that of Lister, for 
he had neither the talents of the first, or the 
originality of the last: yet he laboured conjointly 
with both, and his name assumes a superiority from 
the variety of subjects he wrote upon, and from the 
number of works which bear his name, either as 
author or editor. Ray cannot be said to have 
possessed great genius, but he had sound judg- 
ment, great zeal, unwearied application ;— a pious, 
amiable, and benevolent spirit, ever ready to ac- 
knowledge and to praise the labours of others, and 
do justice to their merits, even when he might have 
appropriated those merits to himself. But, above 
all, the name of Ray will ever be revered by the 
wise and the good, from the use he made of his 
extensive knowledge of. nature. His “ Wisdom of 
God manifested in the Works of the Creation” was 
the first attempt, we believe, ever made in the Chris- 
tian era to confirm the truths of revealed religion by 
facts drawn from the natural world. Another of his 
works, “ Persuasive to a Holy Life,” shows. us also 
how deeply his pure and pious spirit was imbued 
with those truths he taught to others. None but a 
philosopher could have written the first, none but 
