254 



GREENE 



herbarium of his own : its contents being the plants of Lund 

 and its vicinity. But what he wished for beyond anything else 

 was access to the library, though he did not dare ask for the 

 privilege. There he would be sure to find the works of 

 Tournefort, original and unabridged, and even older and rarer 

 standards of the best botan}'. The privilege came, at last, and 

 in a remarkable manner ; by a chain of circumstances that 

 demonstrates the young Linnceus's irrepressible zeal and most 

 unexampled industry in acquiring knowledge of botany. 



Doctor Stobasus, the owner of the first museum of natural 

 history that Linnaeus had beheld was, by Linn^eus's account of 

 him, not only of great learning and of surpassing skill in the heal- 

 ing art, but also himself a feeble sickly man, having but one eye, 

 being also crippled in one foot, and a gloomy hypochondriac. 

 A student or two in his household was a necessity. Much of 

 his medical practice was by correspondence ; and on some of 

 the professional visits, the student must be sent. At the time 

 of Linn^us's coming, a medical student from Germany had long 

 been Dr. Stob^us's main dependence for help ; was thoroughly 

 trusted, and, his right-hand man. This older student the mag- 

 netic 3'oung Linnaeus in an innocent way, and half uncon- 

 sciously, appears to have at first captivated and then bribed into 

 helping him in respect to that which he now most desired. 



An old and honored inmate of the doctor's household was his 

 mother. She was a nervous, fretful old lady, much troubled 

 with sleeplessness. A window of young Linnreus's room was 

 visible from where she tried to sleep, and she observed that, 

 after this new comer had been in the house some weeks, a light 

 seemed to be left burning in his room, if not all night, at least 

 until well towards morning, when presumably it had burnt itself 

 out. She reported the case to her son, and insistentlj^, as a 

 thing that ought by all means to be stopped. The whole house 

 was in danger of destruction by fire. Dr. Stobanis had knowl- 

 edge of students and their ways. In his own mind he doubted 

 that this was a case of sleeping with the candles burning. He 

 entertained a suspicion that the two companion youths would 

 be found there, recreating themselves with cards in the small 

 hours of the night. At two o'clock next morning, the room of 



