346 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



waving in unpropitious direction.' Linnaeus now looked 

 at them anxiously likewise. 



The Chelsea planes and cedars at length showing a 

 favourable wind, after a final week in London, Linnaeus 

 sailed with the tide, winding slowly through the forest of 

 masts, the great English forest a marvellous contrast 

 to the silent pine-forests of Sweden in the Thames. 

 1 The giant bustle, the coal-heavers, the bargemen, the 

 ten thousand times ten thousand sounds and movements 

 of that monstrous harbour, formed the grandest object 

 I had ever witnessed. One man seems a drop in the 

 ocean : you feel annihilated in the immensity of that 

 heart of all the earth.' l And yet a few great minds 

 dominate it all. 



In England Linnaeus had his mind opened wider 

 than he expected, and in other lines. He knew of 

 Boulton and Watt at least as Wedgwood, the ' father 

 of the Potteries,' who was so closely allied with them, 

 took a great interest in the modelling of his portrait, 

 we may safely conclude he knew of those iron chief- 

 tains who sold power. 2 c What a giant was Watt ! fit 

 to stand beside Gutenberg and Columbus as one of the 

 few whose single discoveries have changed the whole 

 course of human civilisation. ' 3 Linnaeus was one of 

 the very few men in those days capable of duly esti- 

 mating any form of genius outside poetry, government, 

 or military art. Other literary men were too closely 



1 Carlyle. 2 Dr. Johnson. 



3 Frederic Harrison. 



