134 Notices of European Herbay^a, 



soon appeared, was entirely owing to his promptitude, for other and 

 very pressing appHcations were almost immediately made for the 

 collection ; but the upright Dr. Acrel, having given Mr. Smith the 

 refusal, declined to entertain any other proposals while this nego- 

 tiation was pending. The purchase was finally made for 900 guineas, 

 excluding the separate herbarium of the younger Linnaeus, collected 

 before his father's death, and said to contain nothing that did not 

 also exist in the original herbarium ; this was assigned to Baron 

 Alstroemer, in satisfaction of a small debt. The ship which conveyed 

 these treasures to London had scarcely sailed, when the king of 

 Sweden, who had been absent in France, returned home and des- 

 patched, it is said, an armed vessel in pursuit. This story, though 

 mentioned in the Memoir and Correspondence of Sir J. E. Smith, 

 and generally received, has, we believe, been recently controverted. 

 However this may be, no doubt the king and the men of science in 

 Sweden were, greatly offended, as indeed they had reason to be, at 

 the conduct of the executors, in allowing these collections to leave 

 the country ; but the disgrace should perhaps more justly fall upon 

 the Swedish government * itself and the University of Upsal, which 

 derived its reputation almost entirely from the name of Linnaeus. It 

 was however fortunate for science that they were transferred from 

 such a remote situation to the commercial metropolis of the world, 

 where they are certainly more generally accessible. The late Pro- 

 fessor Schultes, in a very amusing journal of a botanical visit to 

 England in the year 1824, laments indeed that they have fallen to 

 the lot of the " toto disjunctos orbe Britannos ;" yet a journey even 

 from Landshut to London may perhaps be more readily performed 

 than to Upsal. 



After the death of Sir James Edward Smith, the herbarium and 

 other collections, and library of Linnaeus, as well as his own, were 

 purchased by the Linnaean Society. The herbarium still occupies 

 the cases which contained it at Upsal, and is scrupulously preserved 

 in its original state, except that, for more effectual protection from 

 the black and penetrating dust of London, it is divided into parcels 

 of convenient size, which are closely wrapped in covers of strong 

 paper lined with muslin. The genera and covers are numbered to 

 correspond with a complete manuscript catalogue, and the collec- 

 tion, which is by no means large in comparison with modern her- 

 baria, may be consulted with great facility. 



In the negotiation with Smith, Dr. Acrel stated the number of 

 species at 8000, which probably is not too low an estimate. The 



be of prodigious value. In short, the more I think of this affair the more 

 sanguine I am, and earnestly hope for your concurrence. I wish I could 

 have one half hour's conversation with you, but that is impossible." — Cor- 

 respondence of Sir James Edward Smith, edited by Lady Smith, vol, i. p. 93. 



The appeal to his father was not in vain ; and did our limits allow, we 

 should be glad to copy, from the work above cited, the entire correspond- 

 ence upon this subject. 



[* Equal disgrace attaches to the British Government, which on the death 

 of Sir J. E. Smith refused to contribute anything towards the purchase of 

 the collection, which might thus have been lost to the country had it not 

 been bought by the Linnaean Society. — Ed.] 



