322 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN&US 



CHAPTER XXII. 



ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER LINPLEUS'S SILVER WEDDING. 



Imagination fondly stoops to trace 

 The parlour splendours of that festive place : 

 The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, 

 The varnished clock that click'd behind the door ; 

 The chest contrived a double debt to pay 

 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 

 The pictures placed for ornament and use, 

 The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; 

 The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, 

 With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay. 



Deserted Village. 



WHILE Goldsmith was writing the c "Vicar of Wake- 

 field,' in 1764, another such worthy patriarch was living 

 the life of his story, set in c a background of calm ' to the 

 wars and fierce revolutions going on at that time, where 

 Goldsmith little guessed it in Sweden. 



Linnaeus wished his children to have a house in the 

 country, that they might be brought up, as he himself 

 was, in the freedom and knowledge of nature. His own 

 note-book, written in 1762, says, 'Linnaeus built a 

 house at Hammarby so that his children might have a 

 place of abode, as he felt himself growing weak. His 



