FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. 
135 
to assist others to climb the steepy ascent to use- 
fulness, unencumbered, who otherwise might have 
“ waged with fortune an eterual war.” 5 
The annals of science are indeed replenished 
with the names of many persons of this class in 
society, who have acknowledged and acted on 
the duty arising from the possession of wealth, 
in one at least, and often, like Mr Willughby, in 
both of the modes now adverted to. It were to 
be wished that Mr Ray’s intention, partly, at 
least, in editing the works of Mr Willughby, and 
writing his life, may be more extensively accom- 
plished ; which, next to doing him right, by pro- 
curing him the honour due to his memory, was 
“ to provoke young gentlemen of this nation, by 
the proposal of so illustrious an example of their 
own rank, to prosecute the study of ingenious 
literature, and to aspire to true honour by the 
constant exercise of virtue.”-]- It is also equally 
* Beattie’s Minstrel. 
t It may be allowed to record an instance in which such 
an effect was produced. It is that of the naturalist Pen- 
nant, born 1726, who, like Mr Willughby, was of illus- 
trious descent, and whose father was a wealthy old 
English gentleman. He tells ,us that “ a present of the 
Ornithology of Francis Willughby,. made to me when 
I was about twelve years of age, by my kinsman, the late 
John Salisbury, Esq. first gave me a taste for that study, 
and incidentally a love for that of Natural History in 
general, which I have since pursued with my constitu- 
tional ardour.” Speaking of his Arctic Zoology, he says, 
“ This work was begun a great many years past, when 
the empire of Great Britain was entire, and possessed the 
