i6 3 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



WlSTGOTA RESA ROUND THE VENERN LAKE. 



The giant element 



From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 

 Crushing the cliffs which, downward worn and rent 

 "With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 

 To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 

 More like the fountain of an infant sea 

 Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 

 Of a new world, than only thus to be 

 Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 

 With many windings through the vale : Look back I 

 Lo ! where it comes like an eternity, 

 As if to sweep down all things in its track, 

 Charming the eye with dread a matchless cataract. 



Childe Harold. 



'IN the beginning of 1746, both their Royal High- 

 nesses Adolf Frideric * and Louisa Ulrica visited the uni- 

 versity, and gave the professors gold medals. Though 

 all the other professors received but one, Linnseus 

 received two, as a mark of peculiar favour,' 2 and also 

 because their Royal Highnesses best loved his peculiar 

 science. 



Linnaeus may be said to have set the fashion of 

 natural history in Sweden. This proves his great 



1 Always so spelt in Linnseus's books, title-pages, &c. 



2 Diary. 



