LINN^US. 201 



occasion which occurred many years after, he pub- 

 licly returned thanks to Providence for having sup- 

 ported him amid these privations : — " I thank thee. 

 Almighty God/' said he, '' that in the course of my 

 life^ amidst the heavy pressure of poverty, and in 

 all my other trials, thou hast been always present 

 to me with thine omnipotent aid." 



At this period, Olaus Celsius, first professor of 

 divinity, whom Linnaeus afterwards, in a letter to 

 Haller, describes as the only botanist in Sweden, 

 returned from Stockholm, where he had been on 

 official business, and happening to visit the college- 

 garden, met a young man, who attracted his no- 

 tice by the accurate knowledge of plants which he 

 displayed. On inquiring after him, and receiving 

 a satisfactory account of his character and conduct, he 

 gave him an apartment in his house, and supplied 

 him with every thing of which he stood in need. 

 Thus was he on many occasions obliged, if not to 

 solicit, at least to accept pecuniary assistance. He, 

 however, repaid in some measure the kindness of 

 the venerable Celsius, by assisting him in preparing 

 his Hierobotanicon, in which the vegetable produc- 

 tions mentioned in Scripture are described. To 

 enable him to perform his task, he was allowed the 

 free use of a library rich in botanical works. 



Hitherto Tournefort was the only author to whose 

 works Linnaeus was indebted for the more solid parts 

 of his knowledge ; but a small book of Vaillant on 

 the structure of flowers now coming into his hands, 

 he perceived many defects in the system he had em- 

 braced ; and from the ingenious observations made 

 by the latter writer on the sexes of plants, he con- 

 ceived the idea of founding a system of botany on 



