CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 413 



myself obliged to give you an account thereof. The 

 Badminton plants I intended to revise carefully, and 

 compare with those in my Supplement, and to have put 

 the names to them I found. But, alas ! the sharp cold 

 brunt which happened in January gave me such a shock 

 as utterly disabled me to do anything but sit still and 

 pore upon my pain. And since, about three weeks ago, 

 a strange accident befel me ; one of my small ulcers all 

 of a sudden bubbled up like a fountain, and ran at that 

 rate night and day for five days together, as no man that 

 had not seen it could have believed it ; and in that time 

 reduced me to that weakness that I could not rise alone 

 off mjschair, or stand alone when I was up. This was 

 attended by a pretty smart fever, which determined shortly 

 in a long sweat. Since this, another sad accident hath 

 befallen me. A part of the skin of one of my insteps by 

 degrees turned black, and now is, with the flesh under it, 

 rotted and corrupted, which yet sticks fast and comes not 

 off, yet runs a copious gleet. 



As for your Chinese plants, I intended to have com- 

 pared them with Mr. Petiver's Chusan plants, and wrote 

 to him to send them to me, but he hath not been pleased 

 to do it ; and yet had he sent them, I have not hitherto 

 been in case to compare them. I should do nothing 

 more willingly than serve you in anything in my power ; 

 though this doing I should rather serve myself, by im- 

 proving my little skill in botanies, by the addition of so 

 many new and nondescript species which you have pleased 

 to communicate the knowledge and sight of to me. I 

 am sorely afflicted with pain, and scarce know what I 

 write. Yet so long as spiritus hos regit artus, I shall 

 remain sensible of all your favours, and, 



Sir, 

 Yours in all service, 



JOHN RAY. 



To his honoured friend, Dr. Hans Sloane, 



at his house at the corner of Southampton street, 

 towards Bloomsbury square, London. 



