158 PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



of his fate, so rugged became the path by which he attained the 

 climax of his greatness. His father (a clergyman) intended him 

 for the church, but he himself preferred to wander in the fields, and 

 was so very backward in his studies that his father, despairing of his 

 abilities, resolved to make him a shoemaker ; and had it not been 

 for the kind intercession of Dr. Rothman, who perceived Linneus's 

 talent, he might have succeeded, and the genius of Linneus would 

 have been suppressed for ever. After making choice of the medical 

 profession, Linneus struggled with poverty and its attendant hard- 

 ships. He was reduced so far as to wear the cast-off clothes of his 

 fellow students, and even repaired his own shoes with card and 

 bark ; and not unfrequently the good-will of his college companions 

 furnished his meals. Difficulties and adverse circumstances have 

 frequently been the school in which great men have been formed ; 

 they also served to build the greatness of Linneus : and whilst a 

 less energetic character would have been crushed by despair, with 

 him they were fresh incentives to perseverance. When the poverty 

 of Linneus had sunk to the lowest point, fortune and his persever- 

 ing conduct offered him new prospects. He obtained permission to 

 journey through Lapland, at the expense of the academy ; after 

 which his fame increased, and honours fell thick upon him. Lin- 

 neus was, towards the evening of his life, as happy as his wishes 

 could make him, declaring that he possessed an elysium in his bota- 

 nic garden. This joy was sealed by seeing his own son made pro- 

 fessor of botany, at the age of twenty-two. What a contrast with 

 the stormy paths he himself had crossed to obtain the high seat of 

 honour and peaceful fortune he enjoyed ! But he who had been the 

 favoured of nature found her not propitious in his waning years ; 

 for the two last of his life might be said to be a slow and lingering 

 struggle with death. Even after having suffered a paralytic stroke 

 in 177^j his public services were continued, in some measure, till 

 1776, when his already feeble and infirm health suffered another 

 shock. His nerves were now worn out, and his palsied tongue re- 

 fused its office ; he was carried, fed, and dressed, by the hanrls of 

 others : and during the winter, owing to another shock, his deplo- 

 rable condition rose to the highest pitch. He expired on the 10th 

 of January, 1778, a t the age of seventy years and seven months. 



Never were honours more deservedly bestowed, or more modestly 

 borne, than by this excellent man. How exquisitely sensible his 

 mind was to the vicissitudes of fortune, and to the opportunities his 

 advancement afforded him of diffusing vast benefits through the 

 wide world of science, is sufficiently shown by his meekly beautiful 

 description of the humble plant, Linncea borealis, named after him, 

 " a little northern plant, long overlooked, depressed, abject, flower- 

 ing early." 



Keenly and undeservedly as his system has been aspersed by the 

 advocates of other, and in some measure equally artificial, systems, 

 it cannot even by them be denied that it is the most simple, the 

 most complete, and the most generally available one ever attempted. 



