88 M. Fee's Life of L%nna.us. 



university, or practice as a physician. He at last obtained, al- 

 most accidentally, a petty place in the school of Mines, and af- 

 terwards was appointed physician to the admiralty : his practice 

 became so great, that it yielded him 9000 crowns per annum. 

 He married ; was appointed joint professor with Walerius, and, 

 placed from that moment in a sphere which was worthy of him, 

 prosecuted the study of natural history with renewed zeal. His 

 Systema NaturcB, of which there were so many editions, at- 

 tracted the attention of Europe. The academies wrangled about 

 his name ; his pupils traversed the world, and sent him their 

 collections. The favours of his sovereign succeeded; he was en- 

 nobled, though it is said that this was owing to his discovery of 

 the generation of pearls in the My a margaritifera ;* he received 

 a pension and estates for himself and his posterity, and he who, 

 in his youth, had been obliged, through poverty, to patch his 

 shoes, found himself in his old age, in consequence of the eclat 

 arising from his distinguished works, in a state of great comfort 

 and high distinction in society. 



The concluding years of his age were spent in publishing new 

 editions of his works, and many frequent dissertations, in the 

 form of theses, collected under the title of AmcBnitates ; in gi- 

 ving private lessons (often for eight hours a-day) to select pu- 

 pils ; in watching over the interests of the academy and public 

 collections; and in arranging his own herbal. In 1773 he was 

 attacked by a severe angina; in 1774 he was struck, while 

 teaching in the Botanical Garden, with paralysis, which termi- 

 nated in a tertian ague. He ceased writing his own life in 1776 ; 

 his intellectual faculties fell into a state of decay — the more dis- 

 tressing as he was aware of it. His writing became illegible ; 

 he sometimes blended Greek and Latin characters in the same 

 word. At last, he forgot his own name. In this state, the 

 only thing which seemed to revive him was the sight of his col- 

 lections in his country-house at Hammarby. He died on the 

 10th of January 1778, aged seventy years and seven months. 



• It was at this period that he received the name of Von Linne, instead 

 of LinncBus, which he had always borne, not with the view of latinizing it, as 

 has been said, but in consequence of its being the correct famUy name. That 

 of Linnte^ which has often been given to him in French, is erroneous, and 

 merely belongs to the plant which has been dedicated to him. 



