ANECDOTES OF LINNJEUS. Vll 



avarice. It cannot be denied, that his way of living, 

 considering his good circumstances, was very mode- 

 rate, and that he surely did not despise gold. But 

 if I weigh in my mind, those extremes of poverty, 

 which so long and so heavily overwhelmed him, I 

 can easily account for this parsimony. But I could 

 not say that his frugality ever degenerated into 

 sordid avarice. I can even prove quite the con- 

 trary by my own experience. After having given 

 us lectures all the summer round, we were not only 

 obliged to urge him to receive the fee due for these 

 lectures, but even to leave the money slyly upon 

 his chest, as he had signified his resolution not to 

 take it, in a final and peremptory manner. 



" He was not quite happy and comfortable in his 

 own family. His wife was tall, robust, domineer- 

 ing, selfish, and destitute of every advantage of a 

 good education. She frequently robbed us of the 

 joys which gilded our social moments. Unable to 

 hold any conversation in decent company, she con- 

 sequently was never much fond of it herself. 



" Under those disadvantages, the education of 

 the children of Linnaeus could not but be of an in- 

 ferior description. The young ladies, his daughters, 

 are all good-tempered, but rough children of nature, 

 and deprived of those external accomplishments 

 which they might have derived from a better edu- 

 cation. The younger Linnaeus, who succeeded his 

 father in his professorship at Upsal, is certainly not 

 endowed with the same vivacity; but the great 

 knowledge which he acquired by a constant practice 



