44 



MEMORIALS OF RAY : 



was very acceptable among all the botanists, and is to 

 this day made their pocket companion on all their sim- 

 pling occasions. And although Mr. Ray had added to, 

 and much improved his ' Catalogues/ yet was not his 

 ' Synopsis' so perfect, but to be capable of farther im- 

 provements. In order to which, many of our botanists 

 sent him catalogues of plants he had omitted, and adver- 

 tised him of such errors as he had made. By which 

 means, as soon as this edition was sold off, another was 

 published in 1696, with divers amendments, and an 

 addition of above a hundred more species, together 

 with a succinct history and method of the heretofore dis- 

 regarded and neglected tribes of mosses, mushrooms, and 

 sea-plants, called fuci. 



But to return to the year 1690, where we left off. Mr. 

 Ray having thus published many books, on subjects 

 which he took to be somewhat alien to his profession, 

 (which, as I said, was divinity,) to make some amends, as 

 he thought, and entertain the world like himself, i. e. like 

 a divine and a naturalist both, he set about his incompa- 

 rable demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, 

 which he calls, ' The Wisdom of God manifested in the 

 Works of the Creation \ the rudiments of which book 

 were laid in some college lectures (called common-places) 

 which he, when Fellow of Trinity, had read in the college 

 chapel ; and having much refined and enlarged these 

 common places, and fitted them up for a convenient 

 volume, he sent the copy to his old trusty friend Dr. 

 Tancred Robinson, on March the 3d, 1690, to be dis- 

 posed of by him as he thought fit ; who soon put it into 

 the bookseller's hands, and five hundred of them were 

 accordingly printed and published in the year 1691. 



This book was so well received by the public, that it 

 soon got universal applause, and the impression was 

 presently sold off", so that it came to a much greater im- 

 pression the year following, and afterwards to other 

 editions in 1701, 1704, 1709, and 1714, with large 

 additions. 



