62 
MEMOIR OF 
from Psalm xxxix. 5 . — “ Verily, every man at 
his best estate is altogether vanity,” and which 
is among his most admired productions as a 
preacher. 
In the preface to the Catalogus Plantarum, he 
speaks of him as, — “ Vir de republica literaria 
optime meritus, antiqua fide et sinceritate, singu- 
lar! animi simplicitate et candore, vitse probitate 
et innocentia, nec vulgari morum comitate et 
modestia conspicuus.” The work in which Mr 
Willughby, and these other gentlemen, assisted 
Mr Ray, is not a mere catalogue of plants ; it 
contains also a copious enumeration of synonyms, 
with the names of their authors, and is inter- 
spersed with numerous highly philosophical 
notices of the character and uses of the plants 
and trees found in the neighbourhood of Cam- 
bridge. It needs to be diligently perused, in 
order to perceive how much reading, accurate 
investigation, and diligent inquiry these early 
but enlightened botanists sent into the world 
under so modest a title. The names mentioned 
in it of the different places round Cambridge, in 
which they pursued their researches, revive 
recollections in the mind of a Cantab. He wan- 
ders with them in imagination “ in the lanes and 
closes at Chesterton,” “ in the closes at Ditton,” 
“ Gamlingay,” “ Gog-magog hills,” “ Hill of 
Health,” “ on the moor at Cherry Hinton,” 
“ Kingston wood, and in the closes and corn- 
fields fast by,” “ Madingly, in the wood, in the 
lanes and closes about the town,” “ Newmarkpt 
