DYDINAMIA. 7 



ticular partiality to it^ and traced a fanciful analogy 

 between it and his own early fate — * a little northern 



* plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long 



* over-looked.'^ 



In this Order the Acanthus is placed j an her- 

 baceous plant, of ornamental foliage, often alluded to 

 by the ancient poets,^ from which Callimachus, a 

 Greek architect, is said to have invented the Corinthian 

 capital, suggested to him by accidentally finding it, 

 growing round a basket covered wath a tile. 



'' Linrtasus, the celtbrated naturalist and founder of this 

 system, was the son of a clergyman, born at Roeshult, 

 in the province of Smaland in Sweden, in 1 707. He studied 

 physic at Leyden, and in 1735 took his doctor's degree, 

 after which he settled at Stockholm. At the age of 34 he was 

 appointed Professor of Physic and Botany in the university 

 ofUpsal. He al-o became physician to the king, who created 

 him a knight of the polar siar, and conferred on him a pension 

 with a patent of nobility. He was the founder and first pre- 

 sident of the academy of Stockholm, and a member of several 

 foreign societies. He travelled into Norway, Dalecarlia, Dei^ert 

 Lapland, Germany, Holland, France, and England, in eager 

 pursuit of his favourite science. He died in 1778. 



c Et nobis idem Alcimedon duo pocula fecit, 

 Et molli circum est ansas amplexus acantho ; 



Eel. iii.v. 44 



Virgil also mentions an Acanthus, which was an Acacia- 

 tree, supposed to be the Mimosa riilot'tca of Linnaeus, the same 

 tree that produces the gum Arabic. It is alluded to in Eel. iv. 

 V. 20. Georg. ii.v. 119. 



