70 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNsEUS 



hair's-breadth break destroyed its strength and value. 

 Linnaeus produced a new vase. Heister was his most 

 violent and implacable adversary, chiefly by the pen of 

 his pupil Siegesbeck, whose pamphlet Linnaeus says 

 4 affords no arguments : his whole book is one uninter- 

 rupted strain of obscure and arrogant vituperation/ 

 Linnaeus made no reply to his invectives. ' Heister 

 screened himself behind his pupils,' which was mean. 

 Dr. Mohring, defending Linnaeus, writes to Haller, 

 4 If those literary brawlers had but so earnestly exerted 

 themselves in botany as Linnaeus, they would see that 

 it is easier to criticise than, by dint of the most arduous 

 observations, to discover truths and give new elucida- 

 tions.' 



Carl was always keenly alive to ridicule ; the native 

 pugnacity of the Scandinavian always rose quickly in 

 him, and he burned to fight it out. ' Oh, that these 



pseudo-scientists had but one neck, and I could 



was his feeling, which he checked and controlled. 

 It passed, the qualm of rage and passionate disap- 

 pointment. Linnaeus was himself again. Boerhaave's 

 counsel saved him. ' The attacks of the whole phalanx 

 of his foreign opponents could not induce him to accept 

 a challenge. The method of his vengeance was equally 

 original and piquant.' 1 To the outside world he wore 

 that natural ease and grace, that courtesy and self- 

 restraint, which he had fresh-polished up in France. 

 He had shown he was not one of those l ensigns and 

 1 Stoever. 



