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Derham, "that Mr. Ray was much celebrated in his time in Cambridge, for his preaching solid and useful divinity, instead of that enthusiastic stuff which the sermons of that time were generally filled with.”

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And what wonder if he had studied in the same school with Job, with Moses, or with Solomon? He had found tongues in trees and sermons in every plant, from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop which springeth out of the wall. His I Catalogue of Cambridge Plants' published in 1660, was of singular use in promoting the study of Botany, a branch of learning much neglected at that time, not only in Cambridge, but in most other parts of the kingdom. But after this book was published, many were prompted to those studies, and to mind the plants they met with in their walks in the fields."

This, indeed, was the secret of Mr. Ray's fame. He taught the world that there was much more knowledge to be picked up out of doors than in the library or the study. He introduced men to his Maker's great work; examined, analysed, compared, collated and contrasted the many wonders of the visible creation, and laid the foundation for a new order of things, and a new school of philosophy.

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Yet this took place less than two centuries ago, before which time it would appear that persons went through the world with their eyes shut, and without minding any of the myriad lessons with which the Best of all Teachers had inscribed it, like the mystic scroll of Revelation "within and without." The "simpling journeys" of Ray were almost the first essays made in this country, towards the formation of sound views of Natural History; for, not satisfied with his favorite pursuit of Botany, he sought out, set in order and described "other curiosities birds, beasts, fishes, objects of antiquity, old laws and customs, and a variety of matters not merely interesting, but practical and profitable. And all these enquiries he prosecuted with that pains-taking meekness so rare amongst high-flown philosophers, but so characteristic of the truly great. "For my own part," says he, writing to his friend, Dr. Lister, in 1667, " I cannot boast of many discoveries made the last year, save of mine own errors."

Soon after this he set out again upon his travels, " describing

many fowls, fishes, and plants, taking notes of their uses, the way of smelting metals, making salt, and divers other things." Two years later he visited “the famous fir-trees some two miles and a half distant from Newport, in a village called Wareton, in Shropshire. The greatest, and which seems to be the mother of the rest, we found, (he says,) by measure, to be fourteen feet and a half round the body, and they say fifty-six yards high, which to me seemed not incredible." There is something wonderfully interesting in contemplating our philosopher riding up to these trees" as they appear pleasantly like so many spire-steeples to travellers," with all the keen relish and freshness of a student in the great volume of nature.

It was not long afterwards that he lost his good friend and companion in these happy itineraries, Mr. Willughby, a man like-minded with himself, "who, among other virtuous employments, delighted in the searching after and describing of animals, birds, beasts, fishes and insects. And in these matters he was a great master, as he was also in plants, fossils, and, in short, the whole history of nature.”

From the itineraries of Ray we may form some idea of the state in which he found not only the natural history, but the morals and general acquirements of the people. His mention of the piece of ancient Roman pavement, perhaps that which they call "tessellatum," and of the effigies of a native of Groenland in the Trinity-house at Hull, as unparalleled rarities-of "phoca, which they call soiles," of which he could not certainly learn, "whether they have four, or only two legs, and them before,” of a vast number of plants now almost as common as the common daisy, which were then worthy of minute notice, and his frequent allusion to the popular superstitions, and traditional lore of the peasantry "done into metre," as a substitute for any better vehicle of transmission, all prove how little progress in real knowledge had been made up to that period. Holy wells, and miracle working, and abject ignorance in the masses, form the staple of his notes and observations, and the "good old times,” look very bad indeed in many of his rural pictures. A few specimens may interest. Of St. Winifred's Well, he writes, "Over it is a handsome stone building, and by it a chapel where lie continually a great number of poor, lame, impotent people, more I believe to beg

and receive alms of strangers, than out of hope to receive much benefit by the use of this water, though the inhabitants of the place will tell you stories enough, very confidently, and circumstantially of lately-done miraculous cures, by the use thereof." Again. "We were told a legend of one St. Byno, who lived at Clenogvaur, and was wont to foot it four miles in the night, to Llaynhayrne, and there, on a stone in the midst of a river, to say his prayers; whereon they show you still the print of his knees. His man out of curiosity, followed him once to the place, to see and observe what he did. The saint coming from his prayers and espying a man, not knowing who it was, prayed that if he came with a good intent, he might receive the good he came for, and might suffer no damage; but if he had any ill design, that some example might be shewn unto him, whereupon presently there came forth wild beasts and tore him to pieces. Afterwards the saint perceiving it was his own servant was very sorry; gathering up his bones, and praying, he set bone to bone, and limb to limb, and the man became whole again." We might multiply instances, but must content ourselves with one that will at once bring us back to our proper subject, and shew how errors are to be rectified, and truth elicited by simple observation. "At Newton we saw the Well called St. John's Well, which ebbs and flows (as the people generally there affirm), quite contrary to the sea, but we found that it ebbed as the sea ebbed, and do believe that it constantly does so."

Thus in all ages we shall find people much more ready to guess than to observe-to dream than to investigate; sometimes, as in the case of St. Byno's knee-prints, they had the semblance of fact for a nucleus, around which to hang their crude imaginings of the romantic, and the mysterious. So it seems to have been also at Wells, "There are divers good pieces of carved work in the church. In the body of it towards the west, and between two pillars in the wall is carved the head of a king, with priests on each side tumbling headlong; also a bishop with a woman on one side, and a child on the other, of which they tell this story. The abbot who finished the body of the church after king Ina's death, when the workmen were building the church, gave them a plate out of his pocket, which had these pictures on it, and bade them cut them in stone, and set them in the church wall. When the Abbot came and saw them finished, he wept, and

being asked the reason he answered, 'When there should reign a king like to that head, and a bishop sit like the other, then friars and priests should be thrown down, and bishops marry.' Now the king's face they assert to be exactly like to king Henry VIII., and the bishop like the first married bishop of that diocese." This was the kind of knowledge, if knowledge it can be called, prevailing not only in England, but elsewhere, before such men as John Ray, went out of doors to see and hear, and think, and reason for themselves. Men, unfettered by facts, guessed at, and invented truth-no matter at how large an outlay of credulity. Here is another specimen " We rode through a bushet or common, called Rodwell Hake, two miles from Leeds, where (according to the vulgar tradition), was once found a stag with a ring of brass about its neck, having this inscription,

When Julius Cæsar here was king,

About my neck he put this ring;
Whosoever doth me take,

Let me go for Cæsar's sake.

It matters nothing to enquire whether Julius Cæsar was ever king, whether he wrote after his own death, or if not, why he used the past tense; whether he expressed himself in English or Latin; and if he employed the former tongue, why in the orthography of Ray's own time; or whether a stag set loose in the days of this emperor, was likely to have lived till within memory. Thinking, and dull matter-of-fact men in our own day, might perhaps ask these questions, but in those "former days, which were better than these," the imagination was not to be cooled down to reason-heat.

But even John Ray, though in advance of his own age, was far behind ours. He doled out his great discoveries at first with a timid hand, recording mostly in Latin, the self-same truths, which God had written in His own sweet, matchless, universal language. Yet we owe him much and we owe much to all his disciples. Let us study in the same school; let us drink into the same spirit, and may these gentle pursuits prove to us as he wished them to prove, "A Persuasive to a Holy Life, from the happiness that attends it both in this world and in the world to come." This, the title of almost his last work, gives a pleasing picture of his declining years, and sets the seal of God's approval upon time spent in reading his great volume of Creation.

THE FALL OF THE PAPACY.

AMONG the books which have excited considerable notice of late, we may give a prominent place to one recently advertized on our cover; and entitled, "The Rise and Fall of Rome Papal, by Robert Fleming," a reprint, issued by the publishers of this Magazine. The interest attaching to this little volume arises principally from the circumstance that its author, who wrote in 1701, predicted the French Revolution in the latter part of the last century. Explaining the import of the fourth vial, in his commentary on Revelations xvi. 8, he supposes "it will come to its highest pitch about A. D. 1717, and that it will run out about the year 1794;" adding that "perhaps the French monarchy may begin to be considerably humbled about that time; that whereas the present French king takes the sun for his emblem, and this for his motto, nec pluribus impar, he may at length, or rather his successors and the monarchy itself, at least before 1794 be forced to acknowledge, that in respect to neighbouring potentates, he is even singulis impar."

We are prevented by want of space and other considerations from giving in detail the arguments by which Mr. Fleming arrives at this conclusion: they seem, however, to our minds, to be lucid, satisfactory, and divested of all parade or mysticism. But as his general principles of interpretation apply equally to the ultimate fall of the Papacy, to commence with the present year, we will endeavor to give our young friends some idea of the scheme brought before us in this curious and modest little volume.

Our author lays the foundation of his scheme by explaining in a satisfactory manner the various terms used by St. John to convey the idea of time, shewing that the expressions, though different, are all precisely equivalent, and mutually illustrative; as will be apparent on glancing at the following table :

A thousand, two hundred, and threescore days, Rev. xi, 3, xii. 6=1,260 Forty and two months,...... Rev. xi. 2, xiii. 5 (42×30)=1,260 A time (360;) and (two) times, (720) and a half (180) Rev. xii.14=1,260

The value of these premises will be sufficiently apparent, as they fix very clearly the duration both of the month and yearthe former at 30 days, and the latter at 360. For the veriest

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