Letter 0500

Ray apologizes for not being done with the two specimens Sloane sent him. He discusses Tournefort’s criticism of Ray’s new book and how people expect him to be offended. Ray assures Sloane that Tournefort has treated him no worse than he deserves. Ray only laments that some of the errors Tournefort criticizes are ones that Ray himself has already recognized and attempted to correct in other works. He thanks Sloane for his generous gift of sugar, which has brightened the mood in his house considerably. Ray was a theologian and naturalist who collected and catalogued his botanical findings in the much lauded Historia plantarum (1686, 1688) (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 18 June 2013]).