52 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Mr. WKAY to Mr. LISTEK. 



DEAR SIR, I return you most hearty thanks for the 

 pains you took in perusing my Catalogue, and for your 

 animadversions and observations thereupon. Your opinion 

 grounded upon experience, that Opium, and all opiates 

 are highly venereal, if taken moderately, I willingly em- 

 brace. The reason which induced me to subscribe to the 

 common opinion, was not because I imagined them to be 

 cold, as the former physicians fondly conceited, but be- 

 cause they do in a large dose fix the spirits and inhibit 

 their motion, as appears in that they are anodynous and 

 soporiferous ; and the sperm being a spirituous body, I 

 was thence induced to think that they might hinder its 

 turgescency. But, upon further consideration and inquiry, 

 I find the effects of Opium to be something analogous to 

 those of wine and other generous liquors, which, mode- 

 rately drunk, incite to venery, but to excess, become 

 soporiferous and narcotic, extinguishing that appetite. 

 Whence it is supposed to proceed, that the Germans are 

 of all nations most continent and least addicted to women. 

 I thank you, likewise, for your note out of ' Olearius' 

 concerning Hemp, which I have now entered. I intend 

 to follow your advice in adding something to my preface 

 concerning the usefulness of being particular and exact 

 in natural history ; but much I have not to say concern- 

 ing that point, and I am fearful of enlarging my book 

 and swelling it to a greater bulk than may commodiously 

 be carried about in one's pocket, for that will make it 

 unuseful, and consequently less saleable ; besides that, it 

 is not proper to set a great porch before a small house. 

 I must not forget to thank you for the present you sent 

 me. I agree with you, that what you sent in small 

 pieces and consequently the rest of the same nature cast 

 up on your coast of Lindsey, is yellow amber. The like 

 variety of colours is observed in it wherever it is found ; 

 and the other great piece is truly jet and not cannell. 

 By the leg of the Buzzard, and the description you for- 



