320 JOHN MATOW: CHEMIST AND PHT8I0IAN. 



probably arose in a too hasty reading of the earlier authors. 

 Anthony a Wood^ seems to be the only accessible authority on 

 matters of biographical interest (for Grranger'' adds nothing new 

 to his account) ; and he says : — "John Mayow descended from a 

 genteel family of his name, living at Bree in Cornwall, was born 

 in the parish of St. Dunstan in the west, in Fleet Street, London." 



Mr. Grilbert^ has a quotation from Mr. Bond's History of 

 Looe, from which it appears that Philip Mayow of Looe, a 

 merchant of some eminence in the time of Queen Elizabeth, 

 purchased the manor of Bree or Bray, in the parish of Morval ; 

 there is also given another account which contradicts this, but 

 it is certain that this manor was for a long time held by a family 

 of Mayows, of whom according to Mr. Bond, " Dr. John Mayow, 

 an eminent physician " was one. Where Mayow spent his child- 

 hood is unknown, but the first recorded incident is suggestive. 

 Soon after the return of Charles II he was ' ' admitted scholar of 

 Wadham College," (27th Sept. 1661), and was very quickly 

 " chosen Probationary Fellow of all Souls College," "upon the 

 recommendation of Henry Coventry." Dr. Beddoes* points out 

 that ' ' some favour was shown him at his reception into all Souls 

 College," inasmuch as of the forty fellows of that society, sixteen 

 are ' ' free from obligations of entering into orders ; and the offices 

 of the college devolve oftener iipon them, in inverse proportion 

 to the numbers," That the influence thus exerted was to some 

 extent political can hardly be doubted. Lord Clarendon held 

 Henry Coventry's father in much esteem, Henry himself became 

 Secretary of State, and his brother Sir William Coventry is 

 frequently mentioned by Pepys as a man of influence with the 

 party headed by Lord Clarendon and the Duke of York. The 

 patronage of Coventry was probably continued, for in 1674 

 Mayow dedicates the collected edition of his works to him. 



At college ' ' he had a legists place and took the degrees in 

 the Civil Law, yet he studied physic," and took the degrees in 

 that also. That medicine very early occupied his attention is 



6. — Athenae Oxoniensis. — Anthony a Wood. 



7. Biographical History of England. — J. Granger. 



8. Chemical experiments and opinions extracted from a work published in 

 the last century. — T. Beddoes. 



