SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 215 
the north of Suffolk, but it is not likely that they were so 
important as Browne’s. Among these letters there is not 
any communication, as might have been expected, from 
Christopher Merrett, of whom, it seems, Ray had not a very 
high opinion. 
1658-1664. Joun Ray. 
The Early Itineraries of John Ray. First Itinerary, 
August and September, 1658.—Perhaps nothing better shows 
the enquiring spirit with which Ray and a few friends of 
like tastes set to work, than the diaries of certain “ simpling 
journeys,” as he called them, undertaken in quest of herbs, 
when he and Willughby were young men, but Ray was seven 
years the senior. The first of these simpling expeditions 
was in 1658, at which time Ray (or as he then spelled his 
name, Wray) was only thirty years of age. Yet, young as he 
was, he had already made his mark at Cambridge, where he 
had been elected Greek and Mathematical Lecturer to Trinity 
College. Full of enthusiasm for botany, but at present 
taking not much thought of birds, and solitary, for on this 
occasion he had no companion with him, the scholar starts 
from Cambridge on August 9th, 1658, on horseback, riding 
thirty-one miles the first day. Among enquiring minds of the 
stamp of Ray’s, it is plain that Botany claimed far more 
attention than Ornithology in the seventeenth century; by 
physicians and laymen alike the medicinal value of herbs was 
held in high repute, and it was still thought that in many 
a familiar shrub some undiscovered secret might lie. This 
summer expedition took Ray to Northampton, Warwick, 
Coventry, Ashby and Buxton, as far north as Lancashire, 
after which he visited Wales, and returned home by Gloucester. 
The Itinerary contains nothing about birds, and on his return 
he devoted his time to the “Catalogus Plantarum circa 
Cantabrigiam,” which proved to be his first step to fame. 
Ray’s Second Itinerary. July and August, 1661.—The 
journal of Ray’s second Itinerary, commencing on July 26th, 
is longer, and has a good deal in it which appeals to lovers 
of birds. ‘‘ We began our journey northwards from Cambridge, 
and that day passing through Huntingdon and Stilton, we 
rode as far as Peterborough, twenty-five miles. . . . August 
