A VISIT TO ENGLAND 333 



Gothic-windowed holy chambers of study come over 

 one's feelings with a cooling sensation, as if one had 

 mounted from hell to heaven and been admitted on 

 reprieve from the tortures and fierce passions of the en- 

 raged, the malignant, the ignorant, and the lying to 

 the beautiful simplicity of angelic feelings, where all was 

 good, and holy, and pious, and majestic. I need not say 

 it was vacation' (July 16). Learning was livelier ori 

 Linnaeus's visit in May, and Oxford is always bustling 

 in comparison with Upsala. ' The soil of Oxford is dry, 

 being on a fine gravel. The north is open to cornfields 

 and enclosures for many miles together without a 

 hill to intercept the free current of air.' l This wide 

 undulating amphitheatre, filled with spires and towers, 

 must have looked splendid to the young Swede enter- 

 ing by the High Street, the Oxford road from London, 

 or standing upon Maudlin Bridge over the Cherwell. 



At Oxford Linnaeus was received in a friendly 

 way by Dr. Shaw, who had travelled in Barbary, and 

 who, having read the new system with great pleasure, 

 declared himself his disciple. This was encouraging, 

 but the other Oxford professors were less affable. They 

 were devoted, and with good reason, to the system of 

 Ray the indefatigable and learned Ray, of whom Dr. 

 Johnson says that he reckoned twenty thousand species 

 of British insects. 2 



1 Old guide-book, dated 1761. 



2 Ray died in 1705, two years before Linnaeus's birth ; a man of 

 whom England may well be proud. 



