154 Life of Linnaeus. 
natural history. His Systema Nature, the editions of which have 
been so much multiplied, fixed upon him the eyes of Europe. 
Academies disputed for the honor of his name; his pupils travelled 
over the world, and transmitted its procdwetienss to him. Favors 
from his sovereign succeeded ; he was raised to the rank of noble, 
on account, it is said, of having discovered the generation of pearls, 
Mya margaritifera ;* pensions were granted him, as well as do- 
mains to him and _ his posterity; and he who in his youth had been 
obliged to mend his own shoes, found himself, from the lustre of his 
labors, placed in old age in a state of great ease and social elevation. 
The latter years of his life were passed in supplying new editions 
of his works, in publishing, under the form of academic theses, sev- 
eral piquant dissertations, which have been collected together under 
the title of Amenitates, in giving private lessons (often during eight 
hours a day) to select pupils, in looking after the interests of the 
Academy and the public collections, and in arranging his own herbal. 
In 1773, he was attacked with a severe quinsy; in 1774, while giv- 
ing a lesson in the botanic garden, he was struck with paralysis, to 
which succeeded a tertian ague. He ceased in 1776 to write his 
own life ; his intellectual faculties declined,—a state the more pain- 
ful from his being sensible of it himself. His writing became illegi- 
ble, and he sometimes mixed Greek and Latin letters in the same 
word. Finally, he forgot even his own name. In this condition, 
the only thing which appeared to reanimate him was the sight of his 
united collections at his country house at Hammarby. He expired on 
the 10th of January, 1778, aged seventy years and seven months. 
The second part of Mr. Fee’s work contains extracts from the 
correspondence of Linnzus with the naturalists of his time. This 
correspondence was immense, and Linnzus said himself to the Abbé 
Duvernoy, that ten hands like his own would not suffice to answer all 
the letters which were addressed to him. More than a thousand of 
his letters, addressed to one hundred and sixty correspondents, have 
been preserved, almost all were written in Latin ; that of the earliest 
known date is addressed to Rudbeck, his bicnefaitony dated 29th of 
* It was there that he received the name of Von Linné instead of that of Lin- 
n@us, which he had always borne, not for the purpose of Latinizing his name, as 
has been believed, but because it was the true name of his family. e name 0} 
Linnée, which has often been given him in French is peceees and belongs = 
to. the plant which is dedicated to him. 
