INTRODUCTION CXXXlll 



anthemum. The letterpress abounds in ample descriptions, elaborate 

 criticisms, and intelligent remarks. Several new genera are estab- 

 lished, and many rare or obscure species elucidated. The copy in 

 the Library of the Botanic Garden at Oxford was coloured by Dillenius 

 himself ; it contains a reference to the discovery of Linaria repens at 

 Henley. A key to the modern names of the plants in the work was 

 published in 1856 at Dantzic by E. F. Klinsmann. It appears from 

 the Richardson Correspondence that James Sherard treated Dillenius 

 in a very shabby and ungenerous manner. Dillenius was a very con- 

 siderable loser in a pecuniary sense by the publication of the work, 

 but he grudged the time spent upon it more than the money which he 

 lost by it. 



Dillenius took up his residence in Oxford in 1734, and devoted 

 himself to the task of completing the Pinax. He received the degree 

 of Doctor of Physic from the University in 1735. In 1736 he writes 

 from Oxford : 'A new botanist is arose in the north, the founder of 

 a new method " a staminibus et pistillis," whose name is Linnaeus ; 

 he has 'printed Fund arnenta Botanica, BihliothecaBritannica, Sijstema Naturae, 

 and is now printing in Holland his Characferes and Flo7-a Laiyponica, 

 He is a Swede and hath travelled over Lapponia, hath a thorough 

 insight and knowledge of botany ; but I am afraid his method won't 

 hold. He came hither and stayed here about eight days, but is now 

 returned to Leyden.' This was the well-known visit of Linnaeus to 

 England, which the generosity of his patron Cliffort enabled him to 

 make. He justly considered Dillenius to be one of the first botanists 

 in Europe. One version of the meeting of the two men in the Phj'sic 

 Garden at Oxford is to the effect that the learned Dillenius was at 

 first haughty and distant, conceiving the Genera of Linnaeus to be 

 written against him ; but that he aftex'wards detained him for a 

 month, without leaving Linnaeus an hour to himself the whole day 

 long, and at last took leave of him, with tears in his eyes, after giving 

 him the choice of living with him till his death, as the salary, he 

 thought, was sufficient for them both '. Another version relates that 

 Ijinnaeus, meeting the Oxford Professor in company with Dr. Shaw, 

 the Barbary traveller, whose plants ai'e at Oxford, apologized for his 

 inability to talk in English, which threw Dillenius off his guard, so 

 that he remarked carelessly to Dr. Shaw, ' This is the young man who 

 would confound the whole of botany ' ; but Linnaeus gathered the 

 meaning of the speech by tracing the word ' confound ' to its Latin 

 source, and soon took an opportunity of retaliating by slightly alluding 

 to it while he was demonstrating in the garden some of the new genera 

 to which Dillenius had particularly objected. He quickly constrained 

 the Professor to form a high opinion of his ability, though he could 



1 See Linnaeits' Diary, p. 517. 



