LINN^US. 317 



farms, which his children were to inherit. The last 

 words inscribed in his diary are the following : — 

 '^Horrebow and Berger, both Danes, and Gruno from 

 Hamburg, came to Upsal as pupils ; but Linnaeus 

 is so ill that he can with difficulty speak to them ; 

 for the tertian fever is added to paralysis, and his 

 weakness is extreme." 



In the winter of 177^, he was reduced to the 

 most deplorable condition ; and as in the day of his 

 mental vigour he had presented a brilliant example 

 of the human intellect, so now in that of his prostra- 

 tion did he afford an instance of the utter feebleness 

 of our nature. Another attack of apoplexy caused 

 paralysis of his right side, in which he had most 

 frequently suffered pain ; his memory failed him 

 to such a degree that he could not remember the 

 names of the most familiar objects ; his incoherent 

 and unconnected words indicated a total decay 

 of the powers of his understanding; he could no 

 longer feed, dress, or clean himself; he could not 

 even move from one place to another. The fever 

 continued, and he became extremely emaciated. 

 Yet even in this state he contrived to write a few 

 scarcely-legible letters, one of which was to his 

 friend Baek. It was dated the 9th December 1 776, 

 and contained the followifig sentence : — '' God has 

 determined to break all the bonds that attach me 

 to terrestrial objects." Yet to the last he clung 

 to these with a pertinacity as deplorable as it is 

 surprising in a man who had manifested in his 

 writings, if not in his actions, no small degree of 

 piety. For several years previous to his death, his 

 diary contains little else than an enumeration of 

 the incidents most calculated to gratify his vanity; 



