RAY. 31 



instruction. / This book is the basis of the labours 

 of all those divines who have made the book of 

 nature a commentary on the book of revelation, 

 a confirmation of truths which nature has not 

 authority of herself to establish. In it the author 

 inculcates the doctrine of a constantly superin- 

 tending Providence, as well as the advantage, and 

 even the duty, of contemplating the works of God. 

 "This," he says, "is part of the business of a 

 Sabbath-day, as it will be, probably, of our em- 

 ployment through that eternal rest of which the 

 Sabbath is a type." Archbishop Tenison is re- 

 corded to have told Dr. Derham that ** Mr. Ray 

 was much celebrated in his time at Cambridge 

 for preaching solid and useful divinity, instead of 

 that enthusiastic stuff which the sermons of that 

 time were generally filled with." It would be 

 refreshing to hear a Ray in the nineteenth century. 

 Two of his funeral discourses are mentioned with 

 particular approbation ; one, on the death of Dr. 

 Arrowsmith, master of his college ; the other, on 

 that of one of his most intimate and beloved col- 

 leagues, Mr. John Nid, likewise a Senior Fellow of 

 Trinity, who had a great share in Ray's first 

 botanical publication, the " Catalogug, Plantarum 

 circa Cantabrigiam nascentium," printed in 1660 

 (a catalogue of plants growing around Cambridge). 

 Before this little volume appeared, its author had 

 visited various parts of England and Wales for 

 the purpose of investigating their native plants, as 

 he did several times afterwards. Nor were his 



