FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. 55 



standing at the time Mr Willughby went to 

 College. 



Their friendship was founded upon the most 

 complete congeniality of tastes and dispositions, 

 and was so intimate and unbroken, as that the 

 narrative of their respective lives will henceforth, 

 to a considerable extent, be interwoven. The 

 general events of Mr Ray's life will also be as 

 often introduced in the following pages as may 

 be consistent with the principal object. Mr Ray 

 is justly characterized by a celebrated student in 

 the same department of Natural History, in which 

 he so conspicuously excelled, as " the most accu- 

 rate in observation, the most philosophical in 

 contemplation, the most faithful in description 

 amongst all botanists of his own or of any other 

 time."* It is asserted by many writers, that Mr 

 Ray acted in the capacity of tutor to Mr Wil- 

 lughby while at the University, and that their 

 friendship resulted from the mutual knowledge 

 they acquired of each other in that relation, an 

 assertion far from impossible in itself, when 

 their respective stations in the University, at the 

 time Mr Willughby first entered, and the age 

 of each of them, are considered. But no proof 

 has ever been offered for the assertion ; not the 

 slightest evidence of it occurs in the letters or 

 works of the parties themselves'; and what is still 

 more remarkable, is, that Dr Derham, who was 



* Life of Ray, by Dr James Edward Smith, in Rees's 

 Cyclopaedia. 



