364 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



on the Continent ; but he returned very shortly after- 

 wards. 



Linne writes to Peter Cusson, M.D. of Montpellier : 

 ' The accelerated approaches of old age have long op- 

 pressed me, and I have been still more disabled by the 

 severest winter I ever knew. A slight paralytic stroke 

 attacked me on one side ; and though in due time I 

 recovered from this attack, it has left me feeble and 

 timid ; nor have I ventured for the last half-year to 

 enter my museum, 1 or to mount up to it. Even if I 

 live, I do not propose to visit it till a milder season has 

 rendered the air more salubrious/ 



1 His soul, nearing the land above,' still drew, as 

 the pole star attracts the needle, crowds to Upsala. 

 Gieseke writes to Linne, February 1776, about quarters, 

 ' I fear the Italian and other students, said to amount 

 to more than a thousand, will already have engaged all 

 the best lodgings. What a profit to the town ! ' 



The young Princess Caroline Louisa of Hesse Darm- 

 stadt, Margravine of Baden, then a charming girl of 

 twenty-four, loved Linne and his works. She wrote to 

 him in August 1775 thanking him for a Surinam plant 

 he had named after her. She again wrote, by Bjornstahl, 

 from Hesse Darmstadt asking Linne, or his son if he were 

 himself unable to travel, to pay her a visit. ' She pro- 

 mises you,' says Bjornstahl, ' a fine and commodious resi- 

 dence and hangings as beautiful as those at Hammarby. 

 For I mentioned to her Highness what fine flowers had 

 1 On the hill in the garden at Hammarby. 



