VI ANECDOTES OF LINNAEUS. 



never degenerated into surly or offensive pride. He 

 certainly did not care much for the opinion of his 

 cotemporaries, and only heeded that which pro- 

 ceeded from those who were men of genuine literary 

 merit. His way of living was moderate and parsi- 

 monious, his dress plain, and oftentimes even shabby. 

 The high rank to which his King had raised him, 

 pleased him only as far as he considered it as a 

 proof of his scientific greatness. 



" In the pursuits of his studies he could but ill 

 brook contradiction and opposition. He corrected 

 his works agreeable to the just remarks of his 

 friends, whose hints he received with gratitude ; 

 but the attacks of his opponents he despised, and 

 Xistcad of answering, he consigned them to that 

 obscurity and oblivion in which they have long ago 

 been buried. Notwithstanding this, he could not 

 easily forgive aggressions, and strained every nerve 

 to erase them from the annals of literature. He 

 was liberal in dispensing praise, because he was 

 fond of being flattered ; and this, indeed, may be 

 considered as his greatest foible. At the same time, 

 his ambition was founded upon the consciousness 

 of his own greatness, and upon the merits which he 

 acquired in a science, over which he had for so 

 many years wielded the sceptre of sovereignty. 

 Tournefort, as he often told me, was his pattern in 

 his youth ; he did all he could to equal him, and 

 found at last, that he had left Tournefort at a great 

 distance beneath him. 



u Linnaeus has been particularly charged with 



