64 MEMOIR OF LINNAEUS. 



rades, or obliged to patch with bark or coarse paper 

 those shoes which he had solicited from some of his 

 companions, we are reminded of many similar exam- 

 ples in our own country : of the orientalist, Mur- 

 ray, who learned his alphabet from letters rudely 

 drawn with a burnt heather twig on the back of a 

 wool card of Leyden, who read the book he had 

 borrowed by the borrowed light of a blacksmith's 

 forge ; and of Adams, who attended the College of 

 Edinburgh when he was often too poor to purchase 

 a dinner, and used to consume his penny roll during 

 a solitary walk round the Meadows, or, if the day 

 was wet, in climbing the high flights of common 

 stairs that led from the Parliament Square to the 

 Cowgate. Of these scholastic miseries Linnaaus 

 had his share ; but they abated nothing from the 

 ardour of his studies, and in the pages of Tourne- 

 fort he found consolation for all the difficulties and 

 discouragements he experienced in the gymnasium 

 of Wexio. 



His reputation was European, long before fortune 

 deigned to smile on his labours. Often he used to 

 apply to himself, as a motto, the words of the Latin 

 poet, Laudatur et alget^ " He is praised, and starves." 

 But, in spite of his necessities, the consciousness 

 of his intellectual superiority inspired him with all 

 the pride of independence; while the charities con- 

 ferred upon him, instead of lessening his dignity, 

 reflected honour both on him who received and on 

 those who bestowed them It was the wante of 



