BIHANG TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 13. AFD. IV. N:0 5. 7 



done so, seemingly, to follow the fasliion of the day, but in 

 reality just as much for the sake of scieuce and Linn^us. 

 And long after he liad fallen into disgrace and poverty and 

 bad retired to the solitude of Åkerö, the aiithor of the Sy- 

 steraa Naturse pnblicly proclaimed, in words even more glow- 

 ing than before, his imfailing gratitude towards bis once 

 p o w e rf u 1 p atr on . M 



As early as 1751 Linnjsus bad been invited to arrange 

 the royal collections on which two descriptive illustrated 

 Avorks were to be publisbed under his authorship. It seems 

 as if this plan bad been laid aside for some time in conse- 

 quence of a grcat fire which at the end of May destroyed a 

 considerable part of the southern suburbs of the capital and 

 caused orcat distress, for in June Linn^us asks his friend 

 Bäck-) to let liim know whether the Royal Couple bad altered 

 their design. But soon afterwards, in the beginning of July, 

 we find him installed and at work in the Queen's Museum at 

 Drottningholm,'^) with a valuablc set at hand of the best 

 works of that period on Natural History. He staid thcre till 

 the end of the first week of September. An intended visit 

 in October »to see two grand sights at once, namely the co- 

 ronation and the new Papiliones»*), was prevented by a severe 

 attack of hemicrany'*), and he remained at his home in Upsala 

 bard at work on the Species Plantarum, the copying of the 

 »Museum Reginsej-, and writing the »Planta? Plybridse»®). Having 

 »presidcd» över the ventilation of this dissertation he »sailed» 

 on the lake Midaren to Stockholm, and staid there, as usual 

 at Bäck's house, about a week, during which he seems to 

 have been at Drottningholm on a short visit only, as the two 

 costly insect-cabinets of American cedar") were not yet fi- 



') See P. H. Malmsten, Miunesord öfver Carl von Linné, vid 

 Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens sammankomst d. 10 Januari 1878. (To 

 the memory of Linn.^^us, address to the E. Swedish Acad. of Sciences, 

 Jan. 10. 1878.) 



-) L. to BlcK, '^ g 51. 



■*) »In 1751 the Museum Reginse was described at Drottningholm» 

 Egenh. Anteckningar, p. 2, p. 50. — L. to BÄCK ■/;, '"/(i 51. 



*) Just arrived from Holland; entry into the accounts ^^/p 51. 



*) L. to Count Tessin and to Bäck. ",,, ^"/g 51. 



*) Ventilated *',,, 51, respondente JOH. Haaetman. Amsenitates Aca- 

 demicoE, III, p. 28. 



') Instructio Musei, Dissertatio. '* ,, 53, Amajnitates Academicaj, III, 

 p. 456. — On 'V4 52 the joinery of the two cabinets was paid for with 

 4500 Dollars Copper=1890 Crowns (£ 105), perhaps even excluslve of 

 the wood, there being an entry on the '"',2 51 for »bois de Gédre». The 



