4 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



follow. The hopes of the father received a severe 

 blow at this, and without delay Charles was appren- 

 ticed to a shoemaker. 



How many examples are afforded from the lives 

 of men whose parents have been unable to understand 

 the bent of the son's mind have placed them in trades 

 directly opposed to that for which they had the most 

 liking ! Luther was meant to be a lawyer, and became 

 the greatest reformer which the world has known. 

 Tycho Brahe was to have been a politician, and 

 became an astronomer. Shakespeare was to have 

 measured yards of cloth behind a draper's counter, 

 and became the greatest play-writer of any age. 

 Carlyle was intended for a parson, and became a 

 philosopher; and so other instances might be quoted. 

 No blame could be attached to the father of Linnaeus 

 for this decision. He naturally argued with himself, 

 How could the boy make a living out of plants ? and 

 so, as he had no taste for theology, an honest calling, 

 which would eventually be a livelihood for him, was 

 selected. But there was to be one of many examples 

 where "man proposes and Grocl disposes," and young- 

 Charles' guardian angel was to be a physician in 

 "Wexico, who was professor of medicine in the college 

 where Charles attended. This physician, John Eoth- 

 mann by name, appealed eloquently to the father not 

 to remove his son from college, but to let him study 

 botany and physic ; and to these entreaties he added 

 an offer, which shows how fully he believed in the 

 views he held concerning young Linnaeus, and what 

 large-heart edness he possessed. He generously recom- 



