December 14, 187P. 1 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



513 





for she had his portrait, taken from Derham's biography of 

 him, framed, and hangiDg on the wall by her side. 



It is not generally known that his father, a blacksmith at 

 Black Notley, spelt his name " Wray," and that his celebrated 

 son dropped the W. The name has been derived from the 

 French vrai, true, and one branch of the family have the 

 cantiDg motto, Juste et vrai, Just and true. 



Many years ago I wrote and published the following in your 

 columns : — If a pilgrim loving to visit the places where the good , 

 and the great have dwelt and rest from their labours, will con- < 

 vey himself to the good old Essex town of Braintree, and, staff 

 in hand, will turn down by the east end of its stately church — | 

 a structure that will live in all legal memories for ever in con- 

 nection with its ' Church Rate Case,' and will pass on for 

 some two miles along the road that leads to Witham, he will I 

 arrive at a little white church, plain and unattractive, with 

 oottages appropriately nestling near it, and among them that 

 of the village blacksmith. His forge, with the exception of 

 the broad brick chimney, wears but a modern and no markedly 

 thriving aspect ; but that chimney must have vibrated with 

 the echoes of the hammer's 

 measured blows two centuries 

 since ; and who then stood by 

 its side, and submitted the iron 

 to their blows ? No other than 

 the father of the most excellent 

 botanist that England num- 

 bers among its natives — even 

 the father of the English Lin- 

 naeus, John Ray. In the cottage 

 attached to that smithy was 

 this admirable manbornonthe 

 29thofNovember,1627; bythe 

 Bide of that smithy chimney 

 was his childhood passed. But 

 he was no common boy ; and 

 the squire of the parish — a Mr. 

 Wy vill, if we remember correct- 

 ly — hearing of his rapid pro- 

 gress as a scholar at Braintree 

 school, aided to sustain him 

 at Catherine Hall, Cambridge, 

 and subsequently at Trinity 

 College in the same University, 

 whither he removed, ' because 

 in Catherine Hall they chiefly 

 addicted themselves to dispu- 

 tations, while in Trinity the 

 politer arts and sciences were 

 principally cultivated.' In 1649 

 he was, at the same time as 

 Isaac Barrow, elected a Fellow 

 of his college ; and the learned 

 Dr. Duport, famous for his skill 

 in Greek, used to say that of all 

 his pupils none were compar- 

 able to these two. That he was 

 not deoeived in his estimate of 



Bay is evidenced by the fact that, before he was twenty-seven, 

 in 1655, he had been successively eleoted Greek lecturer, 

 mathematical lecturer, and humanity reader of his oollege. 

 He was also tutor to many gentlemen of high standing, but 

 with none did he acquire so close a friendship as with Francis 

 Willughby, and with whom in after years he was intimately 

 associated in scientific researches. Ray was always fond of 

 natural history, but he especially became attached to botany 

 from one of those providences we are so prone to characterise 

 as accidents, which, though apparently evils, are in reality the 

 seed time of a future rich harvest of good. A violent illness — 

 probably the result of intense sedentary study — rendered neces- 

 sary the remedy of much outdoor exercise ; and as Ray was 

 not of that class who can endure mere mechanioal exertion 

 without an accompanying object of mental improvement, he 

 devoted his walks to the collection and examination of wild 

 plants — researches which he continued for ten years, and 

 which gave birth, in 1660, to his " Catalogue of Plants pro- 

 duced in the Neighbourhood of Cambridge." In its preface he 

 describes the difficulties he had to overcome in the prosecution 

 of his botanioal studies, especially the absence of a guide in the 

 determination of speoies ; yet he surmounted all difficulties, 

 and succeeded in describing alphabetically 626. Many notes, 

 abounding with original observations on plants and insectr, 



Ir- 



an dispersed throughout the volume, all evinoing Bigns of that 

 exoellenoe and celebrity to which he nfterwards attained. At 

 the Restoration of Charles II., 1660, Ray was ordained a 

 clergyman of the Church of Erigland ; but be never held any 

 preferment, nor performed regularly parochial duty ; and two 

 years afterwards he was obliged to resign even hie Fellowship, 

 whereby his entire living was taken from him, because his con- 

 science would not permit him to subscribe the Aot of Uni- 

 formity. Yet there was no fanatioiBtn, but the purest tolerant 

 spirit within him ; and how fitted he was to adorn his profes- 

 sion may be appreciated from that excellent little volume 

 by which he is most popularly known, " The Wisdom of God 

 Manifested in the Works of the Creation." 



The following are details of his career : He was chosen 

 minor Fellow of Trinity in 1649 ; in 1651 was made Greek 

 lecturer of the College ; in 1653 mathematical lecturer; and in 

 1655 humanity reader. He afterwards passed through the 

 offices of the College, and became tutor to many gentlemen of 

 honourable birth and attainments, who gave him due praise 

 and acknowledgments for his watchful oare of them. 



At the period when Mr. Ray 

 turned his attention to the 

 study of nature, the know- 

 ledge of plants was not highly 

 superior to the state in which 

 Turner had found it in the 

 same place more than a cen- 

 tury before. In this study Ray 

 could find no master. We are 

 not able to say that a single pub- 

 lication of a scientific nature 

 on the subject of plants had 

 ever appeared at Cambridge, 

 for Maplet's " Green Forest " 

 will scarcely be thought worthy 

 of that appellation. Oxford had, 

 indeed, not only experienced 

 the benefit of private encou- 

 ragement, but of publio muni- 

 ficence, in the establishment 

 of a garden. But at the sister 

 University Mr. Ray stood alone, 

 himself indeed a host ! Self- 

 taught as he was, and full of 

 ardour, he so forcibly displayed 

 the utility of botanical know- 

 ledge, and its intimate connec- 

 tion with the arts and conve- 

 niences of life, independent 

 even of those charms which the 

 views of nature ever afford to 

 contemplative minds, that he 

 soon made it an object of atten- 

 tion, and numbered among his 

 associates in these studies Mr. 

 Nid, a senior Fellow of his own 

 John ray. College, Mr.Francis Willughby, 



ui d Mr. Peter Courthorpe. 

 Among the variety of notes in his catalogue of Cambridge 

 plants, Mr. Ray informs us that the people of Norwich had 

 long excelled in the culture and production of fine flowers, and 

 that in those days the florists held their annual feasts, and 

 orowned the best flower with a premium, as at present. 



The desire Mr. Ray had to extend his knowledge of English 

 botany had induced him in the autumn of 1658 to take a 

 journey, which he performed clone, through the midland 

 counties of England and the northern part of Wales, in eearoh 

 of plants. This tour held him from August 9 th to September 

 18th. Of this and of two other tours Mr. Ray preserved 

 some short memorandums, in which he has noticed his daily 

 progress, some remarkable facts that occurred, some obser- 

 vations on the antiquities that he met with, and some of the 

 rare plants. Dr. Scott has published these itineraries with 

 his life. 



We read with interest in his itineraries the records of his 

 first finding various plants, some in the gardens he visited, 

 and others growing wild. As examples we note Lupinus luteus 

 odoratus, Yellow Lupine, which, long before, Gerarde describes 

 as having " floures of an exceeding faire gold yellow colour, 

 sweet of smell. They grow in my garden, and in other men's 

 gardens about London." He also notes as new to him Vac- 

 cinium rubra, now called Vaccinium Vitis-idea, commonly 



