362 LINN^US. 



nee in senio torpidus^ in rebus agendis promptissi- 

 mus ; incessu levis^ agilis. 



"^ Curas domesticas commiltebat uxori, ipse natu- 

 rae produetis unice intentus ; incepta opera ad finem 

 perduxit^ nee in itinere respexit." 



To convert this aphoristic description into elegant 

 English, such as is employed by writers of the Buf- 

 fon school, — men of many words and few facts, — 

 would be to destroy its peculiar beauty, which can 

 only be retained in an appropriate translation : — 



" The head of Linnaeus had a remarkable promi- 

 nence behind, and was transversely depressed at 

 the lambdoid suture. His hair was white in in- 

 fancy, afterwards brown, in old age grayish. His 

 eyes were hazel, lively, and penetrating ; their 

 power of vision exquisite. His forehead was fur- 

 rowed in old age. He had an obliterated wart on 

 the right cheek, and another on the corresponding 

 side of the nose. His teeth were unsound, and at 

 an early age decayed from hereditary toothach. His 

 mind was quick, easily excited to anger, joy, or 

 sadness ; but its affections soon subsided. In youth 

 he was cheerful, in age not torpid, in business most 

 active. He walked with a light step, and was dis- 

 tinguished for agility. The management of his do- 

 mestic affairs he committed to his wife, and con- 

 cerned himself solely with the productions of na- 

 ture. Whatever he began he brought to an end, 

 and on a journey he never looked back." 



" Some time before his death," says Condorcet in 

 his Eloge, " Linnaeus traced in Latin, on a sheet of 

 paper, his character, his manners, and his external 

 conformation, imitating in this respect several great 

 men. He accuses himself of impatience, of an ex- 



