92 MEMOIR OF LINN^US. 



stair, however," he remarks, " our doubts were completely 

 expelled. The lady who had first addressed us now spoke a 

 little English, on discovering what country we belonged to, 

 and ushered us into a neat little carpeted parlour, where we 

 found the personage in question, Louisa Von Linne* herself, 

 seated on a high-backed arm-chair in company with another 

 lady. Her appearance was highly interesting, but indicated 

 a degree of feebleness both bodily and mental, which her 

 eighty-seven years but too amply justified. Her grey silk 

 gown and crimped cap spoke of a bygone taste, but were in 

 excellent keeping with her venerable age ; while the tidy 

 look of every thing about her indicated the unforgotten habits 

 of order and cleanliness in which she had been trained. She 

 attempted to rise when we approached, and seemed highly 

 gratified in learning that we were all from such far countries, 

 and had come in search of her father's house out of regard 

 to his great name. Her speech is almost gone, but she still 

 follows attentively all that is said. The sharp scrutinizing 

 glance which she cast at each of us, ere she consented to give 

 us a pinch from her silver snuff-box, was highly amusing. 

 We might be relic hunters such seemed to be the thought 

 passing in her mind and would not restore it. The ex- 

 tended hand was almost withdrawn but a second survey 

 removed her suspicion, and the antique implement made its 

 circuit from one to the other of us, with all the reverence due 

 to the name which it bore. Our visit evidently gave her 

 great pleasure ; it seemed as if she had never known the ex- 

 tent of her father's fame : she could scarcely understand how 

 people from such distant countries could know or have heard 

 aught about the. Swedish professor. The other ladies were 

 obligingly communicative, and mentioned that the fortune left 

 by her father was so considerable, that she had been able to 

 retain all her life the country seat purchased by him, which 

 is so near, that she spends a great part of the year there. As 

 we took her hand at parting, and felt the sands of life ebbing 

 so fast that a few weeks might lay her bv his side, we rejoiced 

 that our idle visit had shed a glimose of joy over the last 

 hours of a great man's child." 



Prom a late Number of the Athenaeum, we learn that this 

 lady died on the 21st of March, 1839, at the venerable age of 

 ninety, and that her fortune descended to two grand-daugh- 

 ters of the Swedish Botanist 



