18 



BOTANY. 



History, was possessed of a discriminating eye ; and being led 

 ' v by an ardent curiosity to pry into the habit and ap- 

 pearance of the minutest plants, which he used to 

 dissect with peculiar delicacy, was fortunate enough 

 to make several important discoveries. He was, more 

 particularly, the first who detected the true flowers 

 of mosses, and the fruit of the mushroom tribe. And 

 his Nova Plantarum Genera, a work comprising part 

 of his discoveries, which he published about the year 

 1729, at Florence, where, in the latter part of his 

 life, he was inspector of the public gardens, was not 

 only received as a valuable present by the lovers of 

 science at that time, but fwill ever remain a monu- 

 ment to his powers of observation. 



Linnxus. Such was the state of the science when the celebra- 

 Botn A. D. ted Linnzus appeared ; and, by introducing a sys- 

 1707. Died tem wn ich in a short time superseded every other, 

 A. D. 1778. 



a new> an< J hitherto the most important, 

 sera in its history. He was born in 1707, at the vil- 

 lage of Rooshoolt, in Smaland, a province of Swe- 

 den, where his father was clergyman ; and from his 

 earliest years began to shew a marked predilection for 

 botanical pursuits. His father had originally design- 

 ed him for the church ; but owing, it should seem, 

 to his progress in the preliminary branches of study 

 at school having been less considerable than could 

 have been wished, the design was abandoned : and 

 he was even on the point of being reduced to the con- 

 dition of a shoemaker, when it was at length determij 

 ned, at the earnest solicitation of Rothman, a physi- 

 cian in the neighbouring town of Wexioe, that he 

 should study medicine. With this gentleman, who 

 kindly took him into his family, and furnished him 

 with the means of instruction, he spent three years ; 

 and after about a twelvemonth more spent at the uni- 

 versity of Lund, where the learned professor Stobasus 

 became his oracle and patron, he went to Upsal, and 

 there entered on a course of more advanced study ; 

 during which he had to struggle with all those dis- 

 couragements and hardships, which extreme poverty 

 brings along with it. Having at length, however, 

 recommended himself to the notice of Celsius, pro- 

 fessor of divinity, and the younger Rudbeck, at that 

 lime professor of botany, he was, by their good offi- 

 ces, brought forward to notice ; and being sent, in, 

 1732, at the expence of the Academy of Sciences, to 

 Lapland, he had an opportunity of giving the first 

 proof, in a public way, of his uncommon zeal and 

 ability as a naturalist : for, after having travelled 

 through that country for several months, in the true 

 spirit of discovery, and with no small risk to himself, 

 he returned with a large fund of information ; the bo- 

 tanical part of which he gave some account of in the 

 Transactions of the Academy for the years 1733 and 

 1 734, and afterwards published more at large in his 

 Flora Lapponica. 



Having employed himself variously, and experien- 

 ced some diversity of fortune during the period 

 that intervened after his return from Lapland, he 

 proceeded, in the spring of 17.-5, to Harder wyk 

 in Holland, where, with some pecuniary assistance 

 which he received from his future wife, Elizabeth, 

 daughter of Moraeus, physician at Fahlun, in the 

 province of Dalecarlia, he was enabled to take the de- 



gree of doctor of medicine : and being shortly after- History. 

 wards recommended by the great Boerhaave, who * v 

 was himself a botanist of no mean fame, to Dr George 

 Cliffort, a rich burgo-master of Amsterdam, as a fit 

 person for arranging the large and valuable collection 

 of plants, and other natural productions, which this 

 gentleman had spared no expence in procuring from 

 every quarter, he went to live with him, at his villa of 

 Hartecamp. By the liberality of Cliffort, who al- 

 lowed him the full use of his garden, herbarium, and 

 library, sent him on a short visit to England, and 

 (which is of no less consequence to a studious mind) 

 relieved him from the anxiety to which he had long 

 been a prey, by furnishing him with a handsome sa- 

 lary and the best accommodation, he was placed in 

 the most favourable circumstances for either acquiring 

 or communicating knowledge. And we accordingly 

 find, that no period of his life was distinguished by 

 so many proofs of diligence, as that during which he 

 resided with his munificent patron at Hartecamp. 



Linnaeus had already, for a considerable time, re- 

 nounced the method of Tournefort, his original guide 

 in botany, and fixed upon the leading principles of 

 his own system ; for so early as the summer of 1730, 

 he had written an essay, which excited a considerable 

 degree of attention in the university, on the sexes of 

 plants. And in lectures which he read publicly the 

 same year, for Professor Rudbeck, as well as in com- 

 munications which he made afterwards to the Acade- 

 my of Sciences of Stockholm, he gave still farther 

 intimations of the change in his way of thinking. He 

 had also published a general outline of his Systema 

 Naturtz, at Leyden, shortly after taking his degree. 

 But now that he was placed in a situation so much to 

 his wish, and felt impelled by no common motives,, 

 he set himself with the most persevering zeal to com- 

 plete what he had begun, by digesting and bringing 

 forward to notice the whole of that scheme for re- 

 forming the science, which he had been some years 

 projecting. The object which he proposed to him- 

 self, besides stating and exemplifying his classifica- 

 tion, founded on the number, proportion, and situa- 

 tion of the sexual parts of plants, was threefold : 

 To improve the terminology ; to establish the genera 

 on characters taken from the flower and fruit only, 

 with the addition of new names where the old were 

 thought faulty ; and to reform the species, by fixing 

 them also on better principles, and assigning to them 

 trivial names, instead of those cumbersome definiti 

 by which they were formerly known. And with' 

 these improvements in his eye, he accordingly pro- 

 ceeded in 1736, to complete and publish the Funda- 

 menta Botanica, a small treatise containing the gene- 

 ral outline of his reformed system. In the beginning 

 of the following year, he favoured the public with 

 the Genera Plantarum, a work into which he intro- 

 duced his intended improvements in the nomenclature 

 and distribution of the genera ; aiid a short while af- 

 terwards he added the Crilica Botanica, which was 

 designed to shew the nature and propriety of the al- 

 terations proposed by him in the technology of tirj 

 science. He likewise completed three other workt, 

 which were published the same year, the Flora Lap- 

 potica, Hortus Cliffbrtianus, and Classes Plant arum.- 

 and in all of them he did a very considerable service 



