ROSEN VICTOR 209 



the belt-wrestlers l at Stockholm, which represents the 

 jealous wrestlers struggling to the death with their sharp 

 short knives, such as are used among these Northmen 

 to this day, and bound together by a strong leathern 

 belt in order that the fight may only end with the death 

 of one or both of them. 



But that history says it was a sword, I should think 

 it more probable that Linnaeus rushed on Rosen with 

 the stout sharp two-edged weapon, the tolle-knife, that 

 the Scandinavians so generally wear in an ornamented 

 sheath at their thigh ; though, as the trial was a cere- 

 monial occasion, dress swords may have been worn. 



Duelling, to which severe penalties were attached 

 by a law of 1682, had long been unknown in Sweden. 

 It was advantageously replaced in the universities by 

 ( national ' 2 quartette-singing, in which Linnaeus seldom 

 or never joined. 



Thus cruelly deprived of resources which promised 

 an ample reward for his studies, and reduced again to 

 indigence, which he had too keenly experienced formerly 

 to render this a matter easily forgiven, Linnaeus con- 

 tinued inflamed with rage against Rosen, who had stood 

 in his way from his first entrance upon life. Nature 

 could not heal his wounds, nor Friendship, for Artedi 

 was away in England. No faithful sympathy could be 

 found to soothe him, for mere fellowship in science does 

 not serve us at the hardest pinch ; nor could he disarm 



1 Bdltespdnnare. 



2 In allusion to the thirteen nations ' of the University. 



VOL. I. P 



