RAY AND WILLUGHBY, 33 



loss and grief,' he writes, ' of myself, his friends, and all 

 good men.' This event materially changed Ray's life 

 for a time at any rate. He had been left by Willughby 

 an annuity of sixty pounds a year, with the charge of 

 superintending the education of his sons, Francis and 

 Thomas, the eldest of these being at this time not four 

 years old. He was also left as Willughby's literary and 

 scientific executor. 



Under these circumstances, Ray made Middleton 

 Hall, the seat of the Willughbys, his headquarters ; 

 and occupied himself during the next three or four 

 years in the education of the boys intrusted to his 

 care, and in editing and completing Willughby's manu- 

 scripts. His work in connection with the latter will be 

 noticed hereafter ; but some idea may be formed of his 

 wonderful intellectual activity and power of work, from 

 the fact that, in addition to carrying out the duties above 

 mentioned, he published a ' Nomenclator Classicus ' (1672), 

 his work on the Low Countries (1673), an d his well-known 

 'Collection of Unusual or Local English Words' (1673). 

 He also, at the same time, carried on an extensive corres- 

 pondence with Martin Lister, Mr Oldenburg (the Secretary 

 of the Royal Society), Sir Hans Sloan e, Dr Tancred 

 Robinson, and others. At this period, letters were some- 

 thing much more serious and substantial than they are 

 at the present day, and many of Ray's letters to Olden- 

 burg were published in the ' Philosophical Transactions.' 

 They dealt with the most extraordinary variety of subjects, 

 amongst which Dr Derham enumerates, St Paul's battoons 

 [peculiar stones found in Malta], 'the Trochites of mush- 

 rooms, maize, the bleeding of trees and motion of their 



