30 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



Linnaeus ! ' Here were these intellectual kings, the 

 dying monarch and his successor. Boerhaave's mantle 

 fell upon Linnaeus. 



On his return to his lodgings Linnaeus found as a 

 last and parting present an elegant copy of Boerhaave's 

 * Chemistry.' Now Linnaeus was indeed lonely in a 

 foreign land, with Clifford estranged and his friend and 

 father in science dying apparently so ; but Boerhaave 

 recovered for a while : his death did not really happen till 

 September 1738. His tomb is in St. Pieter's Kerk. His 

 statue, not a fine one like that of Erasmus at Rotterdam, 

 stands not far from the Ley den railway-station. 



Now Linnaeus himself fell ill. Mental anxiety con- 

 cerning his lady-love, added to the languor produced by 

 overtaxed powers, brought on an acute attack of illness, 

 a violent ague which rendered him entirely helpless. 

 People had suggested to the ' Fair Flower of Falun ' that 

 Linnaeus was too long away that he had forgotten her 

 and meant to settle permanently in Holland. He 

 now received intelligence from Sweden that one of his 

 friends was trying all he could to insinuate himself 

 into the favour of his future father-in-law, with a 

 view to gaining the lady to whom Linnaeus was engaged. 

 He prepared to set off without delay, when he was 

 attacked by a very bad ague, of which he was cured by 

 Baron van Swieten. Later on, in relating the story of 

 his love to his friendly correspondent Haller, he writes 



from Stockholm, ' My most intimate friend B 



regularly forwarded the letters of my mistress by the 



