BY DR. DERHAM. 



27 



But a stop was soon put to these his good designs, by 

 Mr. Willughby falhng very dangerously ill the very next 

 month, first with a violent pain in his head, which, by 

 using diascordium,* fell into his breast, and became a 

 pleurisy, which shifted to a fever, and that remitting he 

 grew better ; but returning, it carried him off, on July 

 the 3d, 1672, at Middleton Hall, "to the infinite and 

 unspeakable loss and grief " says Mr. Ray, of " myself, 

 his friends, and all good men " 



Thus was the world deprived of this great and good 

 man, in his very prime ; for he was taken off in the 

 thirty- seventh year of his age. His example deserves 

 the imitation of every person of great estate and honour. 

 For he was a man whom God had blessed with a very 

 plentiful estate, and with excellent parts, capable of 

 making him useful to the world ; and accordingly he 

 neglected no opportunity of being so. He did not (as 

 the fashion too much is) depend upon his riches, and 

 spend his time in sloth or sports, idle-company keeping, 

 and luxiu-y ; but practising what was laudable and good, 

 what might be of service to mankind. And among other 

 virtuous employments, one he much delighted in was the 

 searching after, and describing of animals, (birds, beasts, 

 fishes, and insects,) which province he had taken for his 

 task, as Mr. Ray had that of plants. And in these 

 matters he was a great master, as he was also in plants, 

 fossils, and, in short, the whole history of nature ; to 

 which I may add that of coins, and most other curious 

 parts of learning ; and in the pursuit and acquest of this 

 knowledge he stuck neither at any labour or cost ; noble 

 monuments of which he left behind him, in those post- 

 humous pieces which Mr. Ray afterwards published ; of 

 which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 



There being the greatest intimacy and friendship con- 



* This medicine is an electuary made with the plant, called Scordium 

 (aKopodov of the Greeks,) by the older botanists, and is the Teucrium scor- 

 dium of Linnaeus. It is a bitter ai'omatic plant, but not now used in 

 medicine. 



