CH. xxv. EARLY LIFE OF LINNAEUS. 207 



different from those of Buffon as his birth and early life had 

 been. Buffon hated to be bound down to exact details ; 

 Linnaeus found his greatest pleasure in tracing out each 

 minute character in plants and animals so accurately as 

 to be able to build up a complete classification, by which 

 anyone could tell at once to what part of the animal or 

 vegetable kingdom any living being belonged. While Buf- 

 fon's books were entertaining and readable, Linnaeus's were 

 often hard dry science, consisting chiefly of long accurate 

 tables and minute details about the structure of animals and 

 plants. Yet Linnaeus's writings are worth infinitely more 

 than those of Buffon's for one simple reason, he had a more 

 earnest love of truth. 



Linnaeus seems to have been bom a botanist. He writes 

 in his own diary that when he was four years old he went to 

 a garden party with his father and heard the guests dis- 

 cussing the names and properties of plants ; he listened 

 carefully to all he heard, and ' from that time never ceased 

 harassing his father about the name, quality, and nature of 

 every plant he met with,' so that his father was sometimes 

 quite put out of humour by the incessant questioning. 

 However at last, when Dr. Rothmann took him into his 

 house, he had opportunities of learning, and from that time 

 he advanced so rapidly that he was soon beyond all his 

 teachers. 



In 1736, after meeting with many kind friends in his 

 poverty, and making a journey to Lapland, which was paid 

 for by the Stockholm Academy of Science, he went to 

 Holland. Here he called on the celebrated Boerhaave, who 

 with his usual good nature introduced him to a rich banker, 

 named Clifford, who was also a great botanist. This was 

 the turning-point of Linnaeus's life. Mr. Clifford invited 



