AN OVERDOSE OF PROSPERITY 29 



felt a disgust with the ever-shifting crowd of learned 

 cosmopolitans in Holland. He now loathed 



To herd with people that one owns no care for, 

 Friend it with strangers that one sees but once ; 

 To drain the heart with endless complaisance. 1 



Oh for home faces to smile on him again ! He had 

 to earn smiles from strangers now. 



He was again delayed in his return by the dangerous 

 illness of Boerhaave ; he could not leave the patriarch 

 of natural science on his death-bed ; he must wait and 

 close his eyes. 



Boerhaave, whose commendation had cheered him in 

 his discouragement, whose discernment had placed him 

 on the pedestal he now occupied, who loved him like a 

 son, and held him heir to all his science c Boerhaave 

 had been attacked in the spring of 1738 with dropsy of 

 the chest, and consequently with great difficulty of 

 breathing. No one was admitted to see or speak to 

 him. Linnaeus was the only person in whose favour an 

 exception was made, that he might see him and kiss 

 the hand of his great instructor to bid him a sorrowful 

 adieu.' 2 He kissed Boerhaave's hand in token of respect, 

 and Boerhaave raised Linnaeus's hand to his lips in 

 return. ' I have lived out my time,' said the venerable 

 invalid, ' and my days are at an end. I have done 

 everything that was in my power. May God protect 

 thee ! What the world required of me it has got, but 

 from thee it expects much more. Farewell, my dear 

 1 Dipsychus, A. H. Clough. 2 Diary. 



