40 



MEMORIALS OF RAY : 



Botany, and was, therefore, by some of his learned friends, 

 put upon writing a ' General History of Plants,' particu- 

 larly the honorable Captain Hatton, a skilful botanist, 

 recommended this work very earnestly to him ; to whom, 

 for this reason, Mr. Ray dedicated the first volume of his 

 ' Histor. Plantar. Generalis which, after he had la- 

 boured at for some considerable time, the first volume 

 was published in June 1686. And about the same 

 time also the second volume was sent to the press, but 

 was not finished there till the latter end of 1687. 



To the compiling this history, many learned and in- 

 genious men gave their helping hand ; but none laboured 

 more in it than Mr. Ray's two great friends. Sir Hans 

 Sloane* and Dr. Tancred Robinson, who were perpetu- 



poraries, and immediate successors, who, instead of improving the arrange- 

 ment so ably sketched out, set about estabhshing others on artificial princi- 

 ples, aU of which are rapidly sinking into oblivion, while the principles of 

 Ray are tacitly admitted, and many of his fundamental divisions adopted 

 in that beautiful but still imperfect natural system which has been formed by 

 the labours of Jussieu, Brown, De Candolle, Lindley, and others." 



* Sloane, Sir Hans, bart., was born at Killileagh, in county Down, on the 

 16th of April, 1660. Though a native of Ireland, he was of Scotch extrac- 

 tion, his father, Alexander Sloane, having been the head of a colony of Scots 

 whom James I. settled in Ulster. 



While young his health was delicate, and from his sixteenth to his nine- 

 teenth year he suffered from spitting of blood. It was, however, in his youth, 

 and wmle living at home, that he imbibed a taste for those pursuits in the 

 cultivation of which he afterwards attained such celebrity. As soon as his 

 health would permit, he repaired to London, and during four years which 

 he spent in the metropolis, devoted himself to the study of medicine and the 

 collateral sciences. Strafforth, a pupil of the celebrated Stahl, was his in- 

 structor in chemistry, and liis fondness for botany brought him acquainted 

 with Ray and Robert Boyle. In 1683 he set out for Paris, and during his 

 stay there attended the anatomical lectures of Duverney and those on botany 

 by Tournefort. On his departure for MontpeUier he was furnished by 

 Tournefort with introductions to all the celebrated men at that university. 

 Here he passed a year, spending much of his time in collecting plants, and, 

 after having travelled through Languedoc with the same purpose, returned to 

 London late in the year 1684. 



He gave many of the plants and seeds which he had collected to Ray, who 

 described them, and acknowledged his obhgations to the donor in his " His- 

 toria Plantarum.' In 1685 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; 

 and a fellow of the College of Physicians in April 1687. His attention had 

 been excited when young by the descriptions of the wonderful productions 

 of tropical climates, and the offer of the appointment of physician to the 

 Duke of Albemarle, who was going out as governor to Jamaica, afforded lum 

 an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity. He accordingly set sail with the 



