RAY AND WILLUGHBY. 35 



account of these will be given immediately. In the 

 meanwhile we must hasten to the end. Ray's marriage 

 had not been blessed with children, and the last ten years 

 of his life were embittered by failing health and a painful 

 disorder. To the last, however, he intermitted not in his 

 labours, and was engaged in writing perhaps the best of 

 his zoological treatises (namely his ( History of Insects '), 

 when death overtook him. His last letter, penned on 

 his deathbed, bearing, as Dr Derham says, 'the marks of 

 a dying hand in every letter/ and broken off at the end 

 by reason of failing strength, was to Sir Hans Sloane. It 

 is subjoined below in its entirety. Few who have known 

 what it is to enjoy a long and tried friendship, will read it 

 unmoved. 



DEAR SIR The best of friends j these are to take a final 

 leave of you as to this world. I look upon myself as a dying 

 man. God requite your kindness expressed any ways towards 

 me an hundred fold, bless you with a confluence of all good 

 things in this world, and eternal life and happiness hereafter, 

 and grant us an happy meeting in heaven. I am, sir, eternally 

 yours, JOHN RAY. 



BLACK NOTLEY, Jan. *jth, 1704. 



Postscript. When you happen to write to my singular friend 

 Dr Hotton, I pray tell him I received his most obliging and 

 affectionate letter, for which I return thanks, and acquaint him 

 that I was not able to answer it ; or 



On the 1 7th of January 1704, in his house at Black 

 Notley, Ray died, in the seventy-seventh year of his 

 age. 



