152 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



wonderful collection, with which Linnaeus furnished the 

 botanical garden. 1 Linnaeus sent, in 1742, at his own 

 expense, a student A. R. Martin to collect plants for 

 him in Norway, by way of trial, before sending him 

 next year to Lapland. 



Though he missed the pleasures of art, it would be 

 an error to say Linnaeus felt no ecstasy in contemplating 

 beauty. Nature supplied him with the most perfect 

 lines and forms and tints, in infinite variety. 



This new-found beauty was not in flowers alone. 

 The birds of paradise, the exquisite humming-birds, the 

 genus Trochilus of Linnaeus, graceful as flowers, radiant 

 as gems, ' the hue of roses steeped in liquid fire,' were 

 still unknown to the multitude. The riches of the earth 

 were now being brought to light. No wonder for a time 

 Art sank into oblivion ; it seemed to die under this new 

 sunburst of natural beauty. Painting failed to express 

 these marvels ; poetry exhausted itself in imagery, and 

 sank beneath the weight of its own epithets. 

 * Linnaeus was also occupied in studying the artificial 

 formation of the most beautiful of natural objects, the 

 concentrated beauty of the globe in microcosm. 



It was about this period that Linnasus made a re- 



1 When Linnaeus was appointed professor of botany the garden 

 at Upsala did not contain above fifty exotic plants. His catalogue 

 Hortus Upsaliensis shows he had introduced 1,100 species, exclusive 

 of all the Swedish plants and varieties, which in ordinary gardens 

 amount not infrequently to one-third of the whole number. The 

 preface contains a curious history of the climate at Upsala and the 

 progress of the seasons throughout the whole year. Encycl. Brit., 

 eighth edition. 



