H A PLEASING ANECDOTE. 



It has been said that the poetical allusions and 

 the elegancies of style observable in the writings 

 of Linnaeus, have done as much to recommend the 

 study of botany, and to establish his own celebrity, 

 as his more serious labours. Be this as it may, it 

 is indisputable that to the influence exerted by this 

 great genius is owing much of the proficiency of 

 the Swedish nation in the study of natural history. 

 " In Sweden," says Sir J. E. Smith, when recom- 

 mending natural science to the rising generation, 

 " natural history is the study of the schools, by 

 which men rise to preferment ;" and that most 

 entertaining of travellers, Dr Clarke, has borne 

 testimony to the zeal with which he found this 

 branch of science pursued by men of various classes 

 in that country. He has related a pleasing anec- 

 dote in point, which will not, perhaps, be inappro- 

 priate here. Arrived at Tornea, at the northern 

 extremity of the Gulf of Bothnia, Dr Clarke sent 

 to the apothecary of the place for a few jars of the 

 conserved dwarf Arctic raspberry. He had observed 

 " this rare plant" in the woods, near the shore 

 where he landed, and found it bearing the first 

 ripe fruit he had seen upon it. The flavour of its 

 berries he thought finer even than that of the haut- 

 boy strawberry, and equal in size to those of our 

 common raspberry-trees ; but the " plant so diminu- 

 tive that an entire tree, with all its branches, 



