LIFE OF JOHN RAY, M.A. F.R.S. 



John Ray, whom Haller terms the greatest botanist 

 in the memory of man, arid to whose transcendant merits 

 we have akeady briefly adverted, in treating of the genus 

 dedicated by Plumier to his name, see ' Raiania,' * was 

 born at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex, November 

 29th, 1628. His father, Roger Ray, though in the 

 humble station of a blacksmith, gave him a learned edu- 

 cation ; first, at the grammar school of his native town, 

 at that time not very well conducted, and, subsequently, 

 at Cambridge, where he entered at Catharine Hall, in his 

 16th year, June 28th, 1644, being designed for holy 

 orders. In about a year and three quarters afterwards 

 he removed to Trinity College, where he found the young- 

 men occupied in a more liberal train of studies, with less 

 of scholastic disputations and quibbles. Ray was fortu- 

 nate in having for his tutor at Trinity Dr. Duport, an 

 eminent Greek scholar, under whose fostering and partial 

 care he soon made up for all the deficiencies of his early 

 education in the learned languages, including Hebrew. 

 By this gentleman he was always mentioned with peculiar 

 regard. He was no less happy in a youthful literary 

 friend and fellow- student, afterwards the celebrated Dr. 

 Isaac Barrow. Even at this early period Ray began to 

 cultivate natural history, and distinguished himself by 

 many school exercises as an orator, no less than by his 

 general taste for study, his love of virtue, and his gentle- 



* This article is reprinted, page 87. 



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