63 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



cannot be said that Culpeper did anything to advance the 

 science of Botany. He died in London, 1654. 



About this time botanists were endeavouring to improve 

 the hitherto very imperfect methods of classification, and 

 greatest among these was our countrjanan John Ray, 

 formerly spelt Wra}^, but altered by himself. A rather 

 particular notice of Ray will not be irrelevant, for he was a 

 careful student of the British Flora, and it is a pleasure to 

 dwell upon the memory of this truly great and good man, 

 who must ever be revered as one of England's greatest 

 worthies, not only on account of his learning and the excel- 

 lence of his writings, but also by reason of his uprightness 

 and independence. As a botanist Haller terms him " the 

 greatest in the memory of man," a commendation, consider- 

 ing him that applied it, which could in no way be exceeded 

 in force. Ray was of humble origin, his father being a 

 blacksmith, and during a long life he was never in what we 



century ; it began to waver and became doubtful towards the close of 

 that period, and- in the beginning of the eighteenth the art fell into 

 general disrepute, and even under general ridicule. Yet it stiU 

 retained many partisans, even in the seats of learning. Grave and 

 studious men were loth to relinquish the calculations which had early 

 become the principal objects of theu' studies, and felt reluctant to 

 descend fi'om the predominating height to which a supposed insight 

 into futm'ity, by the power of consulting abstract influences and con- 

 junctions, had exalted them over the rest of mankind." It is curious, 

 but I have an edition of Culpeper by one Dr. Parldns, of so late a date 

 as 1810, in which is abundance of such rubbish as this respecting 

 the Bay Tree : — " It is a tree of the sun, and under the celestial sign 

 Leo, and resisteth witchcraft very potently, as also all the evils old 

 Satan can do to the body of man, and they are not a few ; for it is the 

 speech of one, and I am mistaken if it were not Mizaldus, that neither 

 witch nor devil, thunder nor lightening, will hm't a man in a place 

 where a bay-tree is." I have planted bays ; they will do no harm, and 

 answer better in cookery than Aucuba, Laurel, or Pihododendron, which 

 some cooks suppose to be all one thing. 



