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 



