28 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



The name of this distinguished man was John 

 Ray, and he was the son of Roger Ray and EHza- 

 beth his wife, being born in 1628. His father was 

 a blacksmith, of Black Notley, near Braintree, in 

 Essex, and the boy was sent to school at the 

 Grammar School at Braintree. There he found the 

 kindness of Mr. Love, the master, in teaching him, 

 a set-off against the general want of education in 

 the establishment; and he had reason to be 

 thankful, for before he was sixteen years of age he 

 was sent , from the school, to Cambr idge. He 

 entered at St. Catherine's Hall, under the tutorship 

 of Mr. Duckfield. But the youth did not like the 

 Hall; he wished to study, and the inmates, he said, 

 chiefly addicted themselves to disputations ; so he 

 went to Trinity, where he found the politer arts 

 and sciences were principally minded and culti- 

 vated. Ray worked hard, and had an excellent 

 tutor, \vho wa^ a great Greek scholar, and soon 

 made up for the defective teaching he had had at 

 Braintree. He acquired much Latin and Greek, 

 and some Hebrew, and it soon became evident that 

 the youth could speak well and fluently. His 

 leisure was that of a student ; he loved to observe 

 nature, to study the little gems of the garden and 

 country, and all these things brought him speedily 

 before the notice of the authorities of the College. 

 When he had been there three years, he was elected 

 a Minor Fellow, together with his great friend Isaac 

 Barrow, who had been a Charterhouse boy, and 

 subsequently a scholar at Felsted, an Essex school. 



