d IS 
MF.3I0I-R OF 
Upon the due consideration of these several 
circumstances, and upon consulting more exten- 
sively the preface to the English edition to the 
ornithology, the reader will be enabled to judge 
cf the correctness of Dr Smith’s assertion, who, 
in the same introductory discourse already 
quoted, says, p. 18, “ Indeed, Ray was so partial 
to the fame of his departed friend, and has 
cherished his memory with such affectionate care, 
that we are in danger of attributing too much to 
Mr Willughby, and too little to himself;” and 
also of his still stronger statement in his life of 
Ray, in Rees’s Cyclopedia, in which he says, 
“ Even to his ow n prejudice he fulfilled the 
sacred duties of friendship, and delighted in 
adorning the bust of his friend with wreaths 
that he himself might justly have assumed.” 
It seems obvious that these suppositions 
involve for their truth a degree of weakness, both 
of intellect and feeling, or of sycophancy also, 
on the part of Ray, utterly inconsistent with his 
well known character. The powers of his mind 
were too great to admit of the conjecture that he 
mistook the distinction between his own merits 
*and those of another ; and, though his heart was 
eminently grateful, yet its emotions must ever 
have been too far regulated by the convictions 
of his understanding, to have betrayed him into 
so egregious and fruitless an error, as to have 
fallaciously transferred imaginary excellencies 
even to his most esteemed friend ; while the 
suspicion of any interested motive cannot rest 
