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NOTE. 



[The following notice of a recent visit to the tomb of John Ray, at Black 

 Notley, will not perhaps be without interest to the readers of this volume. 



" PILGRIMAGE TO THE TOMB OE JOHN RAY, THE 

 NATURALIST, AT BLACK NOTLEY. 



" The name of John Ray, which has long been widely known and as widely 

 honoured by the man of science — and especially by the naturalist, who owes 

 to him so much as the great master of his craft — seems to brighten with age, 

 and shaking off the cobwebs of time, which, ere now, would have obscured 

 merit less sterling, to render his lowly resting-place at Black Notley more 

 attractive to the philosophic and learned pilgrim. Societies are springing 

 up and spreading in honour of the man 



* Who drew, with careful hand and curious eye, 

 Truth from a flower, and wisdom from a fly; 

 Who opened gates to nature's secret store, 

 And science thron'd where error reign'd before ;' 



and this week we have to record a visit, or, as in more appropriate term we 

 call it, a pilgrimage, of some of the wise and distinguished of the land to the 

 tomb of the great lover of, and explorer into, the boundless beauties of 

 nature's creative work. And, indeed, the great naturalist is worthy of all 

 this. ' The name of Ray,' says a writer, ' will ever be revered by the wise 

 and the good, from the use he made of his extensive knowledge of nature. 

 His " Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation" was the 

 first attempt, we believe, ever made in the Christian era to confirm the truth 

 of revealed religion by facts drawn from the natural world. Another of his 

 works, " Persuasive to a Holy Life," shows us also how deeply his pure and 

 pious spirit was imbued with those truths he taught to others. None but a 

 philosopher could have written the first, none but a Christian the second.' 



" The party who visited all that remain — save his immortal works — of this 

 foremost of out Essex worthies, was composed of members of the Linnsean 

 Society, by whom this excursion to the spot, where the ' amiable and gentle 

 Ray' first drew his breath, and where he closed the last years of his useful 

 career, had been long contemplated. Wednesday was the day fixed for this 

 interesting visit, and accordingly a party, consisting of the following gentle- 

 men, left the metropolis by the first railway train in the morning, for 

 Witham : — The Lord Bishop of Norwich, president of the Linnaean Society; 

 Robert Brown, Esq., v.p.l.s.; Edward Porster, Esq., v.p.l.s. ; Thomas Bell, 

 p.R.s., Professor of Zoology, King's College ; W. Yarrell, Esq., f.l.s., &c.; 



