LINNiEUS. 



The emoluments of Linnafus by liis various publications 

 were not great. He is reported to have fold the copy- 

 right of mod of them for a ducat, (about nine and fixpence,) 

 a printed fli^et. His different appointments, however, for 

 lie foon laid afide the general prattice of phyfic, had raifed 

 iiim to a confiderable degree of opulence. He purchafed 

 the eftates of Hammarley and Sbfja in I 758, for So, 000 

 dollars, above 2330/. fterling. He chofe the former for 

 his country refidence, and there, fome years afterwards, he 

 lodged his mufeum, in a building of ftone, fecured from all 

 danger by fire. Tliere he received the vifits of diftinguiflied 

 foreicrners and admitted liis favourite pupils ; to feveral of 

 whom he gave private courfes of Leftures, and completely 

 laid afiJe the ftate of the nobleman and profelTor while he 

 dilcourfed wi;h them on his favourite topics. In 1760 he 

 could not refill the temptation of writinj in fupport of liis 

 doftrine of the fexes of plant?, a handfome premium being 

 offered that year by the Peterlburg academy, as it was fup- 

 pofed with a view to awaken his attention to the fubjeft. 

 His Differtation was printed, and was trandated into Englifli 

 in 1786, with notes, by the prcfent pofienor of his library. 

 His patent of inability did not receive his Majefty's fign 

 manual till 1761, thotigh it was antedated 1757. It was 

 confirmed by the Diet in 1762, and he then took a coat of 

 arms exprefilve of the fciences he cultivated. That augull 

 body honoured him with a Hill more folid reward, upwards 

 of j2o/. flerling, for what feems to have been the leail va- 

 luable of his dilcoveries, the art of producing pearls in the 

 river mufcle. Tliis was accomplifhcd by wounding the 

 ihells in their natural fituation, as appears by fome fpecimens 

 ■illuftrative of i: in his mufeum, but the praftice does not 

 feem to have been profecuted to any great extent. 



He now became one of the eight foreign members of the 

 French Academy of Sciences, an honour never before con- 

 ferred on a Swede. Amid all his dignities however, his 

 ibndnefs for botany never declined ; he records in his diary 

 ttiat having made many trials in vain to obtain the lea plant 

 alive, he fucceeded at length in 1763, adding " that God 

 bleffed him even in this point." His view indeed \^■as pa- 

 triotic as we;l as botanical, aiming at bringing this (hrub 

 into ctiltivation with us, fo as, to ufe his own expreflion, 

 " to fhut the gate through which all the filver went out of 

 -Europe." It is much to be regretted that, from fome pe- 

 culiarity in the conftitution of this precious vegetable, all 

 .attempts to reconcile it to the climate of any part of Europe 

 have proved of no avail, at lead as to any economical pur- 

 pofe. 



In 1763 Linnceus was permitted lo avail himfelf of the 

 alTiftance of his fon, now 21 years of age, in the labours of 

 the Botanical Prcf^efrorfhip, and the young man was thus 

 trained up for hk future fucceffor. His eldeft daughter was 

 married to an officer in 1764. His worldly concerns appear 

 to have been in a profpsrous train, except that he fuffered 

 this year from a dangerous attack of pleurify ; but it is 

 pleafing to read, in his private memorandums, the gratitude 

 he expreiTes to his old rival Rofen, for his Hvill and atten- 

 tion during this iilnefs, and the expreflions of intimate re- 

 gard by which they were now become attached to each 

 other. 



This year the fixth edition, by far the mod complete, of 

 the Genera P/antarum was publifhed, nor did its autiior ever 

 prepare another. It was intended as a companion to the 

 Species Plantarum, but was greatly fuperfeded by tiie more 

 concife and commodious (hcrt characters of g.ncra, given 

 in the vegetable part of the Syjlema Nature. This laft- 

 mentio?;ed part was lubfequently prepared, under the in- 

 fpection of Linnseus, for publication by liis pupil Murray 



VojL. XXI. 



of Gottingen, with the title of Sv/lema Veretabilium, edition 

 13th, and printed in 1774. A 14th edition, with additions 

 from Jacquin and Thunberg, was pubhflied in 1784. Into 

 thefe editions were interwoven the new fpccles defcribed by 

 Linnaeus in his firll and fecond Mantype, two little volumes, 

 containing additions and corrediions, by way of fupplement 

 to the Species Plantarum. In them we cannot help perceiving 

 a decline of the wonted precilion and genius of their author, 

 efpecially in the latter part of the fecond Mantijfa, many 

 remarks in which are mifapplied, to plants different from 

 v.'hat were intended, and the errors to which they give birth 

 can be unravelled by the infpetlion of the Linnsean herba- 

 rium only. 



Though Linna;us declares, in his diary, that he gave up 

 the general pradice of phyfic, on his eltabiifhment at Upfal, 

 attending only his friends and the poor, he appears ever to 

 have paid great attention to that noble and intricate fcience. 

 His ledlures on medicine, dietetics, and the animal economy, 

 were in high repute, nor is he at all beiiind-hand in com- 

 mending his own abilities in this li:'.e. Though undoubtedly 

 a great and fagacious obfcrver in every department of na- 

 ture, he was in this fomewhat too theoretical. If, hovvever, 

 he had peculiar ideas refpefiing the prevalence of the num- 

 ber five, his hypothefes in general role much above the di:!! 

 level of the humoral pathology in which he was educated ; 

 and when he applies his own didadtic talents to illuftrate 

 medical theories, or any thing elfe, he is always ingenious, 

 and as luminous as the fiibjecl will allow. His cunous 

 little Clavis Medicinie, publilhed in 1766, and his Generd 

 Morborum, which appeared three \T;ars before, are not only 

 ftriking, but inllruitive. His idea of a fyftematic arrange- 

 ment of difeafes by technical charafters, was followed up 

 and illuftrated on a large fcale, by his friend Sauvages of 

 Montpellier ; and the celebrated Dr. Cullen of Edinburgh, 

 juftly attributed to the Swedifii philofopher the foundation 

 of his own performance in this line. Such fchemes of 

 arrangement indeed can be confidered merely as helps to the 

 memory, and in themfelves altogether artificial. The abi- 

 hties of Linnius appear to the grcateft; advantage in hii 

 claffification ot natural objefts. He excelled in a happy 

 perception of fuch technical charatters, as brought together 

 things mod naturally allied. Thus his fexual didribution 

 of plants, though profefiedly artificial, is in many parts 

 as natural as any that pretends to be fo. Linnaeus, more- 

 over, was the fird who perceived and declared the dillinc- 

 tion between a natural and an artificial botanic fyftem, and he 

 has laboured at the one as much as at the other. His lec- 

 tures on the natural orders of plants were pubhlhed, long 

 after his death in 1792, from the notes of his pupils Gileke 

 and Fabricius, at Hamburgh. They evince his deep con- 

 fideration of a fubject, then in the infancy of cultivation, 

 the intricacy of which may well cxcufe tlie frequency of 

 error in the detail. In the zoological department, it is but 

 judice to obferve, tl.at his ckifTifications of birds and infects 

 are the mod original as well as the bed of the whole, la 

 the former, as in the lilammalia, the organs of feeding lead 

 the way to the moll natural diftin£tions pofTible ; but the au- 

 thor of this fydem, wlrich no one has yet attempted to fuper- 

 fede, was well aware that the fame principle would not hold 

 good throughout, particularly with refpedt to infefts, whnfe 

 detlination, in their perfecl ilate, is not lo much to take 

 food, as to propagate their fpecies. The mouth and its 

 appendages are therefore, in this tribe, but of far fubor- 

 diiiate confequence ; and Linnaeus had rccourfe to the more 

 natural, as well as far more eafy principles, deducible from 

 the chief peculiarities of thefe animals, the differences in their 

 wings, their llings, and their arienns. His pupil Fabriciui, 



g fcr 



