LINN^.AN MEMORIAL ADDRESS 243 



clergyman, was fond of plants, and had a choice garden wherein 

 he took his daily pastime ; and that in this garden his first-born 

 child developed those predilections which at length became the 

 despair of the father, yet led the son eventually far up the 

 heights of fame. All this is authentic, and well told by the 

 several biographers ; but there is more in that history which, 

 to me seems well worth telling, and will give light upon the 

 derivation of Linnceus's genius as a botanist ; and upon his ac- 

 complishments as a man of learning and of letters. Let us go 

 back to the second generation of his ancestry and glance at 

 men, women and social conditions. 



The grandfather of Linnaius, on his father's side, was a 

 Swedish peasant, by name Ingemar Bengtson. His wife had 

 two brothers who became university graduates, were afterwards 

 clergymen of some distinction, and men of reputation in the 

 world of learning. These grand uncles of our Linnaeus interest 

 us because of their having figured somewhat conspicuously as 

 stars of destiny in relation to him long before his birth. They 

 even had somewhat to do with the originating of the family 

 name Linnaeus. But for their influence in this direction it is 

 probable that their grand nephew, then unborn, if he had dis- 

 tinguished himself as he did, would have been known in history 

 and to fame not as Carolus Linnaeus, but as Karl Nilsson. That 

 both these grand uncles of Linnaeus were Greek scholars seems 

 attested by the fact that, in assuming a new family name, after 

 the mediaeval usage of those who arose from the humble estate 

 of peasantry to the aristocracy of learning, they choose the 

 Greek name Tiliander. They were Karl and Sven Tiliander. 

 In their boyhood they had been known simply as Karl and Sven 

 Svenson, and if they had remained uneducated, and in the same 

 lowly and simple estate in which they were born, they would 

 have been known by those names to the end of their lives. 

 Karl Tiliander rose to wealth and station, adopted a coat of arms, 

 in a word, was an aristocrat, but died childless. His grand 

 nephew, however, born ten years after his death, was named in 

 his honor. In fact, Karl Tiliander and Karl Linnaeus are, in 

 meaning, the same name precisely. Now the other great uncle, 

 Sven Tiliander, was a minister, had a familv of minister's sons 



