74 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE EARLY BOTANISTS 



The final draft of his " Methodus Plantarum " was published 

 in 1703. This contains the foundation of the natural system 

 used at the present day, which, after lying dormant for nearly 

 a century, was revived and expanded by Jussien during the 

 stormy days of the great French Revolution. A third edition 

 of Ray's "Synopsis" was published in 1724 by Dillenius, the 

 first Sherardian professor of botany at Oxford. In this there 

 is a notice of the occurrence of Rhinanthus major at Wood 

 Newton, near Berwick, collected by Dr. Richard Richardson 

 of Bingley. 



Thomas Lawson, born 1630, died 1691. Ray's principal 

 correspondent in the North of England was Thomas Lawson, 

 who, in 1688, sent him a catalogue of the localities of nearly 

 200 rare plants, which was used by Ray in the second edition 

 of his synopsis, and is printed in full in Derham's " Life of 

 Ray" (in 1718, page 213), and again in the volume of Ray's 

 " Life and Letters," issued by the Ray Society in 1848 (pages 

 197-210), with the old names translated into modern ones by 

 Professor Babington. Lawson was born in 1630, was a 

 member of the well-known Cumberland family of that name, 

 was educated at Cambridge, and when of age was ordained 

 Minister of the Church of England at Rampside, in Low 

 Furness. In 1652 George Fox visited the district, and was 

 kindly received by Lawson, who lent him for a day his church 

 and pulpit. Fox preached in it with such effect that Lawson 

 and many of his congregation became Quakers. Of course 

 he had to resign his living. He then settled as a school- 

 master at Great Strickland, a few miles south of Penrith, 

 where he was much esteemed by the Lowthers and other 

 neighbouring gentry. He died in 1691, and his grave, with 

 a large tombstone which one of his pupils erected to his 

 memory, may still be seen in a small lonely graveyard, over- 

 grown with fir trees, belonging to the Friends, near Newby- 

 head. He botanized principally in Westmorland and North 

 Lancashire, but the following list will shew that he had also 

 travelled widely in the two North-Eastern counties. (I have 

 given only the modern names). 



