76 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN^US 



loved him as the Dutch had done.' But the tide had 

 turned at home, and ' Linnagus was enabled at length, 

 according to his anxious wish, to remain and fix the 

 throne of natural history in Sweden,' l whence for a 

 generation he firmly ruled the realm of nature. Haller 

 loved Linnaeus little, but he loved science much ; 

 which was the reason for his generosity. They were 

 opposed on many points, but both their hearts were 

 rooted in one love. 



Haller, who seems to have been above human weak- 

 nesses, scorned in Linnaeus his c childish vanity' and 

 his foibles, especially his habit of naming the beautiful 

 and valuable plants from his friends, and ugly and 

 noxious ones from his foes; justifying Haller's objection 

 to the practice of naming new plants after persons. 

 The rose would never have had its name, had Linnaeus, 

 Rosen's enemy, had the naming of it. 



Yet Carlyle tells us ' Haller concluded his literary 

 career with a romance. No mortal now reads a word 

 of it.' 



Linnaeus, in a letter to Haller, dated September 

 12, 1739, finished September 16, writes, ' All with one 

 voice declared that Siegesbeck had annihilated me. I 

 was obliged to live as I could in virtuous poverty. If 

 1 should not obtain the botanical professorship at 

 Upsala, and you at the end of three months should 

 invite me, I would come if I might bring my little wife 

 with me.' He offers a copy of the * Hortus Cliifortianus 

 1 Stoever. 



