1 52 Life of Linnceus. 



Charles Linnaeus was born at Rashult, in May,* 1707; his father 

 was a country clergyman, of a mild character and an even temper. 

 His mother had, he said, much mind, a sound judgment, and great 

 vivacity of manners, furnishing an additional example in favor of 

 those who maintain that all celebrated men have had intellectual 

 mothers, and who thence infer the influence of the earliest years 

 over the intellectual development of children. Young Charles, from 

 observing the flowers in his father's little garden, had received a 

 taste for botany, and his mother., notwithstanding her Intelligence, was 

 so vexed at the direction which this gave to his studies, that she ex- 

 pressly forbade her other son Samuel from entering the garden. 

 The success of Charles in the studies of the college, was far from 

 answering to those early indications of talent. He, never in his life, 

 had much facility in the study of languages, which is too often made 

 exclusively the criterion of success in colleges, and he went to the 

 University of Lund with the reputation of a very indifferent scholar. 

 He there decided upon the study of medicine, and experienced 

 great difficulties on account of his poverty. The naturalist Stobaeus 

 received him into his house, which gave him an opportunity to see 

 a small museum, and this confirmed his taste for natural history. 

 He went afterwards to Upsal, where Olaus Celsius having heard of 

 his talents and his indigence, received him into his house, in order 

 to aid him in his work upon biblical botany, and placed at his dispo- 

 sal a rich library. He derived some assistance also from giving les- 

 sons to the students, and he even aspired to the place of Rosen, the 

 adjunct professor. He took Tournefort as his guide, in the study 

 of plants, (whom he knew principally from the abstract published by 

 Johrenius, under the title of Hodegus botanicus,) and subsequently 

 the treatise of Vaillant upon the sexes of plants opened his eyes to 

 a new light. Rudbeck encouraged him to pursue it, and it was at 

 this epoch, at the age of twenty two years, that he began to write 

 the Bibliotheca botanica, the Classes plantarum, and even the Ge- 

 nera plantarum. 



Encouraged by the advice of Rudbeck, he then undertook a 

 journey to Lapland, a painful journey, on account of the climate 

 and the rough nature of that country, as well as from the smallness 

 of his means, which obliged him to travel alone, and destitute of 

 many of the necessaries of life. He remitted the account of this 



* Some say the 3d, others the 22th of this month. 



