THE KNIGHT OF THE POLAR STAR 287 



with. Germany, where the best of them, viz. Haller, was 

 more jealous than fervently admiring. 1 



His was no ordinary dictionary -making ; it was 

 not even a furbishing up of old things. Linnaeus 

 had new things to deal with, and 'science and or- 

 ganisation must have their vocabulary.' c There are 

 new things,' says Carlyle, ' and as yet no new dialect 

 for them.' Was he, then, only a big-word-monger? 

 Oh, no! He taught his pupils the art of learning 

 natural history, having first invented the science itself, 

 and been the historian of nature. 'After Linnaeus, 

 by his invention of generic and specific names, had 

 made classification possible, and by his own enormous 

 labours had shown how much could be done when once 

 a method was established, the science ' [of natural 

 history] c has grown rapidly enough.' 2 



Although Linnaeus spoke Latin with facility, and 

 used it perfectly aphoristically, he was no purist in the 

 language. He would repeat passages from Ovid and 

 Virgil with pleasure ; but he was no deep grammarian. 

 ' I would rather have three slaps from Priscian than 

 one from nature,' he would say. Yet that he fully 

 entered into the spirit of the magnificent language that 

 he wielded with a master-hand is proved by this, that 

 1 his system may be considered as the bible of nature, 

 the great nomenclature of natural science, where every 



1 Linnaeus's works on Materia Medica were held by Haller among 

 his most valuable. Was this affectation, jealousy, or an error of judg- 

 ment ? or has the world underrated this part of Linnteus's work ? 



2 Jardine. 



