LINNyEAN MEMORIAL ADDRESS 261 



room, to take his turn in getting a conference with this busiest 

 and most imperious old prince of learning and master of the 

 healing art. Linnaeus now bethought himself to send a copy 

 of the new Systema Naturae. A letter came back, naming the 

 day and the hour when he should be admitted to an audience. 

 The interview was prolonged and was carried into Boerhaave's 

 own private botanic garden, a place well stocked with almost 

 all plants and trees that had been found to endure the climate 

 of Leyden. One beautiful tree which Boerhaave thought — 

 was even very certain — had never been described, Linnaeus 

 gave him the name for ; also the volume and page of one of 

 Vaillant's folios in which it was described fully and clearly. 

 When they returned to the library, the place was found, and the 

 truth was admitted. The venerable doctor advised the young 

 Swede to settle in Holland, where he felt certain that his learn- 

 ing and talents would insure him wealth and great renown. But 

 since Linnaeus could not now prolong his stay at Leyden, Boer- 

 haave desired him to take a letter from himself to his friend, 

 Professor Burmann, at Amsterdam, the port whence Linnaeus had 

 proposed to sail for Sweden. He found Burmann, then much 

 engaged upon his Botany of Ceylon,^ so overwhelmed with work 

 of several kinds, that courtesy seemed to require that he should 

 make the call short. It was evident that nothing but the letter 

 from that great scientific potentate Boerhaave, at Leyden, had 

 procured him admission to Burmann's presence. On withdraw- 

 ing, however, he was invited to call again. At the second call he 

 found the Amsterdam professor less preoccupied. They went 

 into the botanic garden. At the end of this interview Burmann 

 was overwhelmed with a sense of the unexampled skill of this 

 young Swede in botany. He had learned so much of him in that 

 one hour as to see that he must secure, if possible, his help in 

 the finishing of his great book of Ceylonese bdtany. Linnaeus 

 was invited to take up his abode with Burmann for the period 

 of his sojourn in Amsterdam, and he accepted the bidding. He 

 had been there about two months when he received a call from 

 one of the merchant princes of Amsterdam, George Cliffort. 

 He was a gentleman of culture as well as of great wealth, and 



' Thesaurus Zejlanicus. 410. 1737. 



