76 



MEMORIALS OF RAY 



' Historia Piscium' of Willughby was given by his care 

 to the world. This was printed in foho, with 188 plates 

 of fishes, in 1686, at Oxford, owing to the interest of 

 Bishop Pell and the pecuniary assistance of the Royal 

 Society. It does not appear why the relict of Mr. 

 Willughby withheld in this instance the contributions 

 which had so much benefited her husband's former work, 

 and which she justly owed to his fame. It seems that the 

 intimate connexion of Ray with this family was much im- 

 paired by the death of Lady Cassandra Willughby, the 

 mother of his friend, about the year 1675 or 1676, when 

 the children were taken from his tuition, and he left 

 Middleton Hall, fixing, for a short time, at Sutton Cofield, 

 four miles distant. At Michaelmas, 1677, he removed 

 from thence to Palborne Hall, in Essex, not far from his 

 native village. On the 15th of March following, his 

 mother, at the age of 78, died at Black Notley, " in her 

 house on Dewlands," of whom he speaks with that reve- 

 rence and regret which has peculiarly marked the charac- 

 ters of some of the greatest and best men on the same 

 occasion. At Midsummer, 1679, he finally settled at 

 Black Notley for the remainder of his days, or " for the 

 short pittance of time he had yet to live in this world," as 

 he himself expressed it, which pittance, however, extended 

 to more than twenty-five years. 



The first fruit of our author's leisure and retirement 

 was his 'Methodus Plantarum Nova,' published in 1682, 

 making an octavo volume. His principles of arrangement 

 are chiefly derived from the fruit. The regularity and 

 irregularity of flowers, which take the lead in the system 

 of Rivinus, make no part of that of Ray. It is remark- 

 able that he adopts the ancient primary division of plants 

 into trees, shrubs, and herbs, and that he blamed Rivinus 

 for abolishing it, though his own prefatory remarks tend 

 to overset that principle, as a vulgar and casual one, un- 

 worthy of a philosopher. That his system was not merely 

 a commodious artificial aid to practical botany, but a 

 l)hilosophical clue to the labyrinth of nature, he probably. 



