A EULOGY OF RAY, DALE AND ALLEN. 
J 5 6 
add nothing to my bare enumeration of his chief works to prove 
his industry ; but time has prevented me from doing justice to a 
conscientiousness and modesty which invariably gave to others 
full credit for their work and help. In the halting language 
of the recently-discovered first volume of Dr. Benjamin Allen s 
Note Book, we have an example of his reverence, which seems, 
I think, almost to anticipate the well-known stanza of 
Tennyson. “He said also/’ we are told, “that a spoyle or 
smile of grass shew’d a Deity as much as anything , nothing 
in it to raise, keep, or support it, but a Divine power by which 
it stands and grows.” This is surely an anticipation of the 
poet’s “ Flower in the crannied wall.” 
To term Ray the father of natural history in this country 
is at once unfair to some earlier naturalists, and quite inadequate 
as expressing the scope of his work. If not worthy to be men¬ 
tioned as a philosopher, he vastly surpasses Aristotle as a zoolo¬ 
gist; and if not, like Csesalpinus, the “ parent of system,” we 
need not hesitate to rank him, for his elaboration of a Natural 
System, with Linnaeus or Jussieu. 
No one would think for a moment of classing Samuel Dale 
in the same category of greatness with his master Ray ; but 
in certain directions he surpassed his teacher. Ray was able, 
as we have seen, for a great part of his life, to devote himself 
exclusively to scientific research. Dale was engaged through¬ 
out his mature years in the practice'of a laborious piofession. 
To him, as to Allen, in the same profession, science could be but 
a hobby for hours of relaxation. Dale wisely, therefore, set 
himself simpler tasks than those accomplished by his illustrious 
master, and of three of these he only managed to complete two. 
Few details are known of Dale’s private life. What there is 
was either pieced together by me in 1883, largely from the 
tickets of his herbarium, or has been laboriously collected 
from local records by Mr. Miller Christy. 
Samuel Dale was born in 1658 or 1659, possibly at Braintree, 
but more probably, I think, in Whitechapel. His father is 
described as “of the parish of St. Mary, Whitechappel, silk- 
throwster ” ; so that it has naturally occurred to me that he 
might have had trade connections with Braintree and may 
even have been of Huguenot family. In 1674, i.e. at about 
