Volume 1
Further correspondence of John Ray / edited by Robert W.T. Gunther.
- John Ray
- Date:
- 1928
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further correspondence of John Ray / edited by Robert W.T. Gunther. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![After Mr. Willugby’s Death about ve 46th year of his Age, our great Man married Margarett daughter of Mr. John Oakley of Launton in Oxfordsheire by whom he had 4 Daughters 3 of which survived him, & onely [one] of which is since married. He lived some time after his Marriage in Warwick¬ shire, & thence removed about Michaelmass 1677 into Essex his Native country, spending ye greatest part of ye remainder of his Days in an house of his own erection in Black Notley in which he died Jan. 17, 1705. He was both Deacon & Preist of the Church of Engld. ordain’d about 1660, by the learned Bp. Sander¬ son, altho for some few (& if it was not too presumptuous would say trivial) reasons, he could not comply with ye Bartholomey Act, & consequently not execute his Function, yet he was a strict as well as pious & exem¬ plary Conformist to ye establish’d Church as the constant tenour of his life, as well as a Noble Declaration to ye Hector of his parish shewed. As to his Learning his Physiological works show how excellent a Naturalist he was, as his Theological show how good a Divine, but by his papers in my hands, I find him to have been an excellent Orator in ye University, & a good Preacher, & a good Crittick in Greek, & Lattin, skill’d in Hebrew not to name ye modern Languages French & Italian, which he under¬ stood, & as he was well skill’d in most parts of Learning, so he was as ready to communicate it, and as humble in his opinion of himself & it. He was a man of excellent Natural Parts, and had a singular vivacity in his Style, whether he wrote in English, or Latine, which was equally easy to him, all which (notwithstanding his Age & the debility & infirmityes of his body) he retained even to his Dying day ; of which I have seene good evidences now by me in some of his Lettrs. written manifestly with a dying hand. In a word in his dealings no man more strictly just; in his Conversation, no man more humble, courteous and affable ; towards God, no man more devout; &](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31348361_0001_0041.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
