IN THE CHOICE OF A BUSINESS OR PROFESSION. 281 



and Theology, had no charms for him ; nor did Hebrew and Greek, 

 languages in which the great treasures of divinity were deposited, 

 find in him an admirer. He devoted himself almost exclusively 

 to the Mathematics and Physical Sciences; to aid his progress 

 in the latter of which, he formed a small collection of books, con- 

 sisting principally of Floras, and some of these, though then beyond 

 his comprehension, he even committed to memory. Indeed, he was 

 generally known, amongst both tutors and scholars, by what was 

 doubtless considered the contemptuous appellation of " the little 

 botanist." 



The result of so manifest a dislike to theological studies, and of 

 so determined an adherence to the natural sciences, in a community 

 totally unable to appreciate their value and importance, was that, 

 when his father came to Wexio in the expectation of finding him, as 

 he was then in his nineteenth year, almost prepared to enter on 

 the great duties of the Christian ministry, he had to endure the bit- 

 ter disappointment and mortification of learning, from the preju- 

 diced and narrow-minded tutors, that his son had neither taste nor 

 talent for classical and biblical literature, that to incur further ex- 

 pense in his education would be the height of folly, and that the 

 most proper and prudent plan he could adopt would be to bind him 

 apprentice to a shoe-maker or tailor ! 



Thus was he whom, shortly after, Sweden was proud to call her 

 son, and whom kings delighted to honour, on the point of being sa- 

 crified to ignorance and bigotry, and probably of being lost for ever, 

 as a man of science, to himself and to mankind, in the unintellec- 

 tual details of an ignoble mechanical employment. It is not unfre- 

 quently the case that attempts are thus made to thwart the obvious 

 bias of youth, in order to promote some darling project or to serve 

 some contemptible policy. With ordinary minds, easily influenced 

 by external circumstances, this, it is true, may be a task of no diffi- 

 cult accomplishment ; but in such as bear the genuine impress of 

 genius, the impulse communicated by some early determination of 

 their powers and predilection generally continues, through life, un- 

 changed and undiminished. In the instance of Linneus, the whole 

 course of his education hitherto had been directed to prepare him 

 for an office for which, however dignified, he had no inclination 

 whatever, and to turn the current of a taste which, formed almost 

 at his birth, had grown deeper and stronger with his growth, and 

 which neither severity of treatment, the insolence of contempt, nor 

 the stern obligations of filial duty, could weaken or destroy. Yet 

 it is only candid to admit that, although the result bears out this 



VOL. VI. — NO. XX. NN 



