332 CORRESPONDENCE OE RAY. 



what occasion he could find for so doing. By all I hear 

 of him, he is a rude and insolent fellow. My Avife salutes 

 you with the tender of her humble service. I am, 



Sir, 

 Your very aflFectionate and obliged 

 friend and servant, 



John Ray. 



Eor his honoured friend, Dr. Hans Sloane, 



at his house at the corner of Southampton street, 

 towards Bloomsbury square, London. 



Mr. Ray to Dr. Hans Sloane. 



Sir, — I have this morning returned you by carrier the 

 three tribes you last sent, and give you many thanks for 

 the use of them, as also for your kind and friendly letter. 

 Mr. Harris's book I gat not till yesterday. I have hastily 

 perused it, and find it to be a scurrilous piece, wherein 

 the author hath discovered a great deal of pride, scornful- 

 ness, and ill-nature ; besides his rashness, inconside- 

 rateness, and maliciousness in injm-iously attributing to 

 Dr. Robinson pieces of which he was so far from being 

 the author, that he knew not who was. As for his treat- 

 ing me, though it be not very civil, yet it is not so vilely 

 rude and contemptuous as might have been expected from 

 a person of Avhom you have given so just a character. 

 And now, sir, since you command me to find faults in 

 your writings, and I have nothing to carp at but gram- 

 matical niceties, and because I see Mr. Harris hath exer- 

 cised his pedantic critics upon that subject, give me leave 

 to acquaint you with one orparoramata, or perchaoce only 

 typographical errata of that nature. ' Cat. Jamaic' p. 16, 

 1. 9 ; " Ex insula Jamaica adduxit," &c., for brought. 

 This, I remember, was many years ago derided by Mr. 

 Hobbes for improper. But the Oxford Professors, in 

 whose writings he found "adduxit secum malleum," which 

 he interpreted, lead with him a hammer, and upbraided 



