FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. 
43 
author well qualified to form the opinion,* that 
“ their descriptions are wide, frequently incorrect, 
and in few cases characteristic. They had no 
idea of disposing the objects of which they treated 
in a manner resembling that to which we have 
been accustomed since the time of Ray and 
Linnaeus.” 
It is now the place, agreeably to the object of 
the foregoing sketch, avowed at the commence- 
ment, to submit to the reader’s attention the 
chief particulars in the history of the English 
Naturalist, Francis Willughby, Esq. of whom, 
although his name occurs in almost every treatise 
on Natural History, and often with high com- 
mendation, yet no Memoir has been published 
calculated to illustrate the varied excellencies of 
his character, or to do justice to the genuine 
claims of his improvements in science. 
Francis Willughby was born at Middleton, in 
Warwickshire, in the year 1635. He was des- 
cended from tw'o ancient families, each of the 
name of Willughby ; namely, from that of Wil- 
lughby de Eresby in Lincolnshire, a baronial 
family of high antiquity and historic renown, on 
his grandfather’s side ; and from the family of 
Willughby of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire, 
which derived its name from one of its earliest 
possessions, Willughby on the Wolds, in that 
county, on his grandmother’s side. His grand- 
mother’s family derived its first prominence from 
the career of Sir Richard de Willughby, Knight, 
* Macgi llivray. 
