16 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN&US 



grand passion, i by distance made enchanting,' came 

 in to fill up an aching void in his nature. He had 

 overworked himself, and could no longer judge justly of 

 the work he had achieved. As Browning elsewhere * 



says, 



It must fall out 



That one whose labour perfects any work 

 Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he 

 Of all men least can measure the extent 

 Of what he has accomplished. 



He still ' had on the anvil various books.' Among 

 his works written at this time was his ( Flora Lapponica,' 

 of which Sir J. E. Smith remarks, ' This work, one of the 

 happiest literary compositions of its author, is strikingly 

 characteristic of the state of his mind at the time it was 

 written. It is redundant in observation and reflection 

 on every subject which could be interwoven with its 

 professed object, conveyed in the most engaging style ; 

 a style independent of studied phraseology, flowing 

 directly from the heart, and deriving its principal charm 

 from the delight the author takes in what he has to 

 communicate. The enthusiasm with which his imagina- 

 tion retraces every idea of his Lapland expedition 

 turns the wild scenes of that country, even in the 

 mind of his reader, into a paradise inhabited by all 

 that is innocent and good. His effusions resemble the 

 longings of an exiled Swiss, and are, in fact, incipient 

 symptoms of that oppression of the heart which after 

 a while rendered his abode in Holland, with all its 

 1 Paracelsus. 



