LINNiEUS. 337 



brought your premature birth to such perfection. 

 You have accomplished great things, and, tliat you 

 may go on and prosper still more, let me exhort you 

 to examine more and more species. I do not doubt 

 that you yourself will one day overthrow your own 

 system. You see, my dearest Linnaeus, how plainly 

 I speak my sentiments, depending on your candour 

 to receive them favourably." 



One of the most respectable of his English cor- 

 respondents was Peter Collinson, with whom he 

 became acquainted when he visited London in 1736. 

 He belonged to the Society of Friends, possessed a 

 most amiable disposition, evinced the strictest pro- 

 bity and the purest benevolence, was blessed with 

 a genuine and ardent love of nature, enjoyed a long 

 life of active virtue, and died in the glorious hope 

 of a happiness unappreciable. The gentle though 

 rather romantic character of the quaker shines forth 

 in all his letters, but in none more than in the 

 last he wrote, which is as follows : — 



" Ridgewa3'-hoiise, on Mill-hill, ten miles north of London, 



March 16, 1767. 



" I am here retired to a delightful little villa, to 

 contemplate and admire, with my dear Linnaeus, 

 the unalterable laws of vegetation. How ravishing 

 to see the swelling buds disclose the tender leaves ! 

 By the public newspapers we were told that with 

 you in Sweden the winter was very severe, the 

 Sound being frozen over. I have no conception of 

 the power of that cold which could fetter the roll- 

 ing ocean in icy chains. The cold was what we 

 call severe, but not so sharp as in the year 1740. It 

 lasted about a month, to the 21st of January, and 



X 



