10 



MEMORIALS OF RAY : 



he was tutor to many gentlemen of great worth, from 

 several of whom I meet with letters of due praise and 

 acknowledgments. 



Neither was he only an eminent tutor, but as eminent 

 a preacher, both in his college and in the University. 

 We have sufficient examples of his performances of this 

 kind in the theological pieces he published, which were 

 all or most of them common-places in his college, or 

 sermons preached in the University; particularly his 

 'Wisdom of God in the Creation' was a college exercise. 



Mthough, as is just observed, he was much famed for 

 his preaching, he did it in a way very different from the 

 fashion of those fanatical times. His Grace the late pious 

 and learned Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tenison,* 

 (whom I am bound to mention with all due respect and 

 honour,) told me, that Mr. Kay was much celebrated in 

 his time, in Cambridge, for his preaching solid and useful 

 Divinity, instead of that enthusiastic stuff, which the 

 sermons of that time were generally filled with ; and that 

 he well remembered the subject of one of his sermons 

 was ' Mundus non senescit,' for which he was much ap- 

 plauded. 



His three physico-theological discourses concerning the 

 Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World, I conceive, 

 were common-places or sermons. His discourse of the 

 Dissolution, he saith, was a sermon he preached of old at 

 St. Mary's in Cambridge, in a letter to his beloved and 

 learned friend Dr.Tancred Robinson,! of July 24th, 1690. 



* Tenison, Thomas, d.d., Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in Cam- 

 bridgeshire in 1636, and died in 1715. 



f Robinson, Sir Tancred, m.d,, was physician in ordinary to George I., 

 from whom he received knighthood. He was educated at St, Jolm's College, 

 Cambridge, where he took liis degree of B.M. in 1679, and of M.D. in 16S5. 

 He was not only the friend of Ray, but of many of his contemporaries. He 

 devoted much attention to botany and the natural sciences generally, as is 

 proved by his correspondence vtith Ray. He was a feUow of the Royal 

 Society, and contributed several papers to the Philosophical Transactions. 

 Amongst others, ' Observations on boiling Fountains and subterranean 

 Streams,' Pliil. Trans. 1685 ; 'On the French Macreuse and Scotch Bar- 

 nacle,' ibid. ; ' Account of the Tubera terrse, or Truffles, found in Nortliamp- 

 tonsliire, Lyco])erdon tuber' Linn., ibid. 1693 ; ' On the great Age of Henry 

 Jenkins,' ibid. 1696. He died March 29th, 1748. 



