18 MEMOIR OF RAY. 



John Ray was born on the 29th November 1628, 

 at a place named Black Notley, in Essex. Although 

 the name of his family was Ray, he continued all 

 the time he attended the university to write it 

 Wray, a form in which it accordingly appears in the 

 college registers, and in some of his earliest publi- 

 cations. This alteration was soon however aban- 

 doned, and he confesses himself to have adopted k 

 inconsiderately, and contrary to the usage of his fore- 

 fathers. His parents were of humble condition, but 

 they were enabled to provide for the liberal educa- 

 tion of their son. His early studies were pursued at 

 the grammar school of Braintree, which was not far 

 distant from the place of his birth. In his maturer 

 years he used to lament that so much of his time 

 had been spent there unprofitably, owing to the 

 imperfect mode of education pursued — a complaint 

 pretty generally applicable to such institutions at 

 the period of which we speak. 



We possess no detailed or circumstantial account 

 of Ray's boyhood, nor is it probable that there was 

 much deserving of being recorded in the early part 

 of a life, which was never marked, even at its most 

 active period, by great variety of incident. What- 

 ever may have been the deficiencies of his education 

 at school, they were speedily repaired by his ex- 

 treme assiduity and aptitude for learning. His at- 

 tention seems for a time to have been chiefly de- 

 voted to the acquisition of languages, and other 

 branches of knowledge bearing immediate relation 



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