26o GREENE 



money was now almost all gone, but what of that? He had 

 often been in such straits before, but some provision had always 

 hitherto been made for him. 



Leyden was the seat of what, at the time, was the most cele- 

 brated university in Holland ; and, for botanical gardens, and 

 botanical celebrities who had taught there, was hardly second 

 to Paris itself with its traditions of Tournefort and his successor, 

 Vaillant. In Professor Paul Hermann's time, little more than a 

 generation anterior to Linnceus, the Leyden Garden had been 

 confessedly the finest and richest in the world. After Paul 

 Hermann, Dr. Hermann Boerhaave had presided there. He 

 had retired from the professorship three years before Linnaeus's 

 arrival in Holland, and was now at once the most famous physi- 

 cian in Europe and without a rival as an authority upon systematic 

 botany. He was living in age and retirement not far from Ley- 

 den, and there was not another man upon the face of the earth 

 whom Linnjeus so much wished to see. He could not endure 

 the thought of returning to Sweden without having visited this 

 great Mecca of botanists, Leyden. Once there, he found friends 

 in learned botanists nearer his own age, who had not yet 

 published books, and of whom he had not heard. Among 

 these, Adrian van Royen, professor at the university in succes- 

 sion to the illustrious Boerhaave ; also Dr. Gronovius, a well- 

 versed and ardent botanist. Others at Leyden who became 

 Linnaeus's cordial and helpful friends we must not stop to name. 

 Both van Royen and Gronovius became enthusiastic over the 

 young man and his manuscripts. Gronovius was so charmed 

 with his Systema Naturae that he proposed, with Linnaeus's 

 permission, to have it published at once, and the printing of it 

 was begun. It came out, as a mere outline sketch of a new 

 natural history. It was a folio tract of but fourteen pages, but 

 it was everywhere received with the greatest applause. Mean- 

 while Linnceus had used every endeavor to see that great oracle 

 of medicine and of botany, old Boerhaave, but in vain. Pro- 

 vided with a letter from Gronovius, he had called every day for 

 a whole week, but to no purpose. Ambassadors and princes 

 had found him accessible with some difficulty. Even Peter the 

 Great, of Russia, had been obliged to wait two hours in an ante 



