ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER 355 



came a widow. Linne saw his early friends and the 

 associates of his riper years fallen, or dropping on all 

 sides, and exclaimed, ' Ego infelix socius resto.' 1 ' At 

 sixty years of age proper names began to be forgotten 

 by him whose head had contained more of that kind 

 than most other persons.' 2 He now more than ever felt 

 the value of his habit of noting down everything he 

 observed in its proper place immediately and never 

 trusting it to memory. 



He alludes to this fading of the memory in his 

 saying, 4 Ego infelix socius resto.' But those earlier 

 memories remain, which people an old man's last days 

 with his earlier companions. 



Yet he had not much cause to repine against fate ; 

 he was honoured at home and abroad. Ellis writes to 

 him December 1770 : ' Sir James Gordon always toasts 

 your health as the king of botany by the name of i My 

 Lord Linnaeus,' and that before he drinks the king's 

 health.' 



Linnaeus still occupied himself with solid scientific 

 work. ' His " Sy sterna Naturae," which had grown 

 from a few tables to two, and finally to three volumes, 

 was finished in 1768. In this performance Linnaeus 

 is the methodiser and nomenclator of all the known 

 productions in the three kingdoms of nature. The 

 twelfth immensely enlarged edition of the " Systems 

 Naturae " appeared in the author's lifetime.' 3 



Linne writes to Ellis in August 1771 : 1 1 was de- 

 1 Bright well. 2 Diary. 8 Jackson. 



A A. 2 



