BY DR. DERHAM. 



21 



afterwards gave it, in their ' Histories of Plants and 

 Animals.' But it is not at all to be wondered at, that 

 such an account should be defective at the beginning, 

 before they had fully weighed and considered so new a 

 subject as that was at that time, a part of learning but 

 little studied or cultivated, that lay confused and without 

 any, or no better than no method ; but which those two 

 great men so cleared up, methodized, and advanced, that 

 to them may be ascribed a great deal of that perfection 

 to which natural history is now arrived. 



Having traced our great man's life to the year 1667, 

 and 39th year of his age, the next thing I meet with is 

 his farther prosecution of his researches into the history 

 of nature ; the summer of this year, by another journey 

 into the west of England, in company with his most 

 honoured and beloved friend Mr. Willughby. They set 

 out from Mr. Willughby's seat, at Middleton Park in 

 Warwickshire, on June 25th, 1667, and travelled through 

 the counties of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Somerset, 

 and Devon, into Cornwall, as far as the Land's End, 

 where they arrived August the 1 7 th ; and then returned 

 through Hants to London, on September the 13th follow- 

 ing. In this journey they described many fowls, fishes, 

 and plants, and took notes of the mines, the way of 

 smelting metals, making salt, and divers other things, 

 which I find in Mr. Ray's diary of that journey. 



By this time Mr. Bay had much signalized himself for 

 his great skill in curious matters, and therefore was im- 

 portuned to come into the Royal Society ; and accord- 

 ingly he was admitted Eellow, on November the 7th ; 

 and in the same month, viz., November the 16th, being* 



the Gift of Prayer/ published in 1651, were also repeatedly reprinted. 

 Wilkins left his papers to the care of his friend TiUotson, allowing him to 

 use his own discretion as to pubHshuig any of them ; and in 1675 appeared a 

 treatise ' Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion,' which he had 

 left in an unfinished state. In 1682 Tillotson pubKshed a volume containing 

 fifteen of Wilkins' s sermons, and some others were published separately 

 during his Hfe, and also after his decease. 



* As appears by a memorandum in Mr. Ray's own hand-writing. — G. S. 



