FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. 63 



about the town, on the heath," " on the bank of the 

 great Ditch, called the Devil's Ditch," &c. Dr 

 Derham, in his Life of Ray, says of this book, 

 " It proved of singular use in promoting the 

 study of botany, hitherto much neglected both in 

 Cambridge ahd in the kingdom generally ; for 

 after it was published, Mr Ray himself told me 

 (than whom no man ever spoke with greater 

 modesty of himself, or of his performances) that 

 many were prompted by it to those studies, and 

 to mind the plants they met with in their walks/' 

 In the end of this year, 1660, peaceable times 

 coming on, as Dr Derham observes, " by the 

 restoration of the king and royal family," Mr 

 Ray began to think of entering holy orders, and 

 was ordained deacon and priest by Dr Saunder- 

 son, Bishop of Lincoln, December, 1660.* In 



* The fact that Mr Ray should have preached, as he is 

 stated to have done, before being ordained, is accounted 

 for, by knowing that, during the interregnum, young 

 men of known talent, learning, and piety, were allowed 

 to deliver what were called *' commonplaces," a species 

 of sermon, both in the chapels of their several colleges, and 

 even in St Mary's Church before the University. The 

 foundation of several of Mr Ray's works published m 

 subsequent years was laid in these commonplaces, 

 particularly his valuable treatise on the Wisdom of God 

 in Creation, and his Physico- Theological Discourses con- 

 cerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World. 

 Dr Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, said of his 

 talents as a preacher, that "he was much celebrated for 

 his preaching solid and useful divinity, instead of that 

 enthusiastic stuff which the sermons of that time were 

 generally filled with. 1 ' 



