CAROLUS LINNAEUS 57 



His death occurred on his fifty-third birthday. 

 He also died unthanked for the greatest of 

 several great things that he had done for 

 botany. All the world botanical still idolized 

 the memory of the great and popular Tourne- 

 fort; and it resented that virtual overthrow of 

 his whole system which this remarkable former 

 student of his had accomplished. Universally, 

 and bitterly they charged him with ingrati- 

 tude. And so that inaugural address, in which 

 this far greater man than Tournefort had 

 given to his science the very best that was in 

 him, became an offense to the blind invidious 

 multitude. When they should have praised 

 him, they blamed him; and he lay down and 

 died. 



But afar in the north, in the land of giants 

 mythical and giants real, there was an un- 

 gigantic youth of great mind and of noble 

 soul, who would champion most successfully 

 the cause of Sebastian Vaillant; and in so 

 doing create a new system of botany that 

 should supersede that of Tournefort. 



It was in the year 1729, when Linna?us 

 was in his twenty-third year, and a student 

 at Upsala, that he first became acquainted 

 with Vaillant's great tract; learning from it 

 that those obscure and long-neglected stamens 



