BY DR. DERHAM. 



29 



to lay aside the thoughts he had of another western 

 simpHng journey, and indeed of all journeys of that kind, 

 he thinking it his duty to be as assistant to his dear 

 friend's family as he could. For which reason, he much 

 confined himself to Middleton Hall ; and the journeys 

 he took were about matters relating to his trust. 



• Immediately after Mr. Willughby's death, Dr. Lister 

 invited Mr. Ray to come and live with him at York ; but 

 nothing could draw him from the faithful attendance on 

 his trust. 



Not many months after the death of Mr. Willughby, 

 Mr. Ray lost another of his best friends. Bishop Wilkins ; 

 whom he visited in London, on November the 18th, 

 1672, and found him near death, by a total suppression 

 of urine for eight days ; and the next morning, Novem- 

 ber the 19th, about four of the clock, that great man 

 died, to Mr. Ray's unspeakable loss and grief, as he ex- 

 presseth it. 



Mr. Ray having thus lost some of his best friends, and 

 being in a manner left destitute, began to have thoughts 

 of marriage, having met with a young gentlewoman (then 

 in the family he was in) of about twenty years of age, 

 whose piety, discretion, and virtues, recommended her to 

 him, as well as her person. Her name was Margaret, 

 the daughter of Mr. John Oakeley, of Launton in Oxford- 

 shire, a gentleman of a younger branch of a family of that 

 name in Shropshire. They were married in Middleton 

 Church, on June the 5th, 1673, by the Reverend Mr. 

 Antrobus, minister of the parish. 



Towards the latter end of this year 1673, Mr. Ray's 

 ' Observations Typographical, Moral, &c.,' came forth, 

 and therewith his ' Catalogus Stirpium in exteris Regio- 

 nibus a nobis observatarum ;' for the sake of which 

 latter piece, in a great measure, it was that he published 

 the former, because he thought the latter too small and 

 jejune to go alone into the world. 



About the same time also was published his ' Collec- 

 tion of Unusual or Local Enghsh Words,' which he had 



