LINNiEUS. 



■fciilovy, more particularly botany, anJ after endeavouring, 

 iram his moll tender years, to make him fond of flowers, 

 committed him, when about the age of nine or ten, to the 

 Diore particular care of fome of his own moft farounte 

 pupils. By them he was taught the names of the plants in 

 the Upfai garden, and fuch of the principles of natural fci- 

 ence as were fuited to his period of life, as well as to con- 

 verfe habitually in Latin. He proved a docile and ready 

 fchoiar, and appears to have given fatisfaftion to his father, 

 •who procured for him, at the age of eighteen, the appoint- 

 ment of Demonftrator in the botanic garden, an office then 

 iirll contrived on purpofe for him. Having learned to draw 

 from nature, he became an author at the age of twenty-one, 

 publilbing in 1762 his firft Dtcas Plantarum Rariorum Horti 

 Upfi-il'ienfis, the plates of which, in outline only, like thofe 

 of Pluinier, were drawn by his own hand. Tiiefe are fuffi- 

 ciently faithful and ufeful, if not ornamental. The de- 

 Icriptions are full and fcientiiic. In 1763 another Decas, 

 or collection of ten fpecies, came out on the fame plan. 

 Whether the Upfal bookfellers did not encourage him to 

 proceed, or for what other reafon we know not, he never 

 printed any more numbers under this title. In 1767 how- 

 ever, he publillied at Leipfic ten more plates and defcrip- 

 tions, like the above, entitled Plantarum Rariorum Horti 

 Upfalimfis Fafciculus Primus. To this he was perhaps inlli- 

 gated by his friend Schreber, who, the year before, had 

 given to the world a fimilar work, defcribing ten rare ori- 

 ental plants, drawn by himfelf. But neither of thefe pub- 

 lications was ever extended to a fecond Fafciculus. In 176^ 

 he was nominated adjunct Profeffor of Botany, with a pro- 

 mife, hitherto unexampled, that after his father's death, he 

 ibould fucceed to all his academical funftions. In 1765 

 lie took his degree of Doctor of Phyfic, and began to give 

 leAures. 



His progrefs would probably have been happy, if not 

 brilliant, but domellic chagrin lapped the foundation of all 

 his felicity, and damped his ardour in every purfuit. This 

 arofe from the conduct of his unnatural mother, another 

 example of that rare and detellable depravity exhibited by 

 the mother of Savage the poet. Not content with dil- 

 honouring her hulband's bed, and making his home as un- 

 comfortable as flie could, by the mear.ell parlimony and 

 difgulling petty tyranny, the wife of the great Linnajus 

 conceived a hatred for her only fon, which {he difplayed by 

 every affront and perfecution that her fituation gave her 

 the means of inflitling on his fufceptible and naturally 

 amiable mind. According to Fabricius, fhe forced her huf- 

 hand, who by fuch a conceffion furely partook largely of 

 her guilt and meannefs, to procure the nomination of his 

 pupil Solander to be his future luccelTor, in preference to 

 his own fon, and it was a part of her plan that he fhould 

 marry her elded daughter. Solander, however, difdaincd 

 both the ufurpation and the bait, refufing to leave England ; 

 and the mifguided father recovered his ienfes and authority, 

 caufing his fon, as we have laid above, to receive this truly 

 honourable diltinCtion. The mind and fpirit of the young 

 raan neverthelefs Hill drooped, and even when he had attained 

 his thirtieth year, he would gladly have efcaped from his 

 miferies and his hopes together. The authority of the king 

 was obliged to be exerted, at his father's ioliciiation, to 

 prevent his going into the araiy. This meafure of the pa- 

 rent wa^ happily followed up by kindnefs and encourage- 

 ment in his botanical purfuits, to which treatment the fon 

 was ever fcnfiblc, and he revived from his defpondency be- 

 fore his father's death, which happened when he was thirty- 

 feven years of age. 



Though obliged by his mother to purchafe, at her own 



prife, the library, manufcripts, herbarium, &c. which he 

 ought by every title to have inherited, he rofe above ever)' 

 impediment, and betook himfelf to the ufeful application of 

 the means now in his hands, for his own reputation and 

 advancement. His father had already prepared great part 

 of a third botanical Appendix, or Manliffa ; from the com- 

 munications of Mutis, Kccnig, Sparmann, Forfter, Pallas, 

 and others. To this the younger L;nna;us added thofe of 

 Thunberg from the Cape, which his father, " with half- 

 e.vtingnifhed eyes," as Condorcet beautifully relates, had 

 juil been able to glance over, but not to defcribe. Hence 

 originated the Supplementum Plantarum, printed at Brunf- 

 wick, under the care of Eiirhart in 1781. The ingenious 

 editor inferted his own new characters of fome genera of 

 Moffes ; which Hedwig has (ince confirmed, except that 

 fome of the names have been jiittly rejedled. This (heet 

 was, in an evil hour, iupprcifed by the mandate of Lin- 

 naeus from London, \\-here, at that period, the fubjeft of 

 generic charatterj of moiTes was neither iludied nor under- 

 tlood, whatever fuperior knowledge was difplayed concern- 

 ing their fpecies. Tlie plants of the ^uppiemmtum are 

 admitted into the fourteenth edition of the Syjlcma Vege- 

 tahilium by Murray, and figures of lome of the moit curious 

 have been publilhed by the writer of this prefent article, in 

 his Plantarum hones ex Herbaria Linnsano. Three bota- 

 nical differtations alfo appeared under the prefidency of the 

 younger Linnaeus, on Grafles, on Lavandula, and the cele- 

 brated Mstbodus Mufcorum, which laft was the work, and the 

 inaugural thefis, of the prefent Profedor Swartz of Stock- 

 holm. Thefe form a fequel to the 186 fimilar elfays, which 

 molt of them compofe the feven volumes of the ^Imoenilatei 

 Acadimiciz, the reit being publiihed by Schreber in three 

 additional ones. 



Tile fubjecl of our memoir had always felt a ftrong defire 

 to vifit the chief countries df learned and civilized Europe. 

 For this purpofe he was obliged to pawn his juvenile her- 

 barium, made from the Upfal garden, to his friend Alllroe- 

 mer, for the loan of about fitty or fixty pounds. He 

 arrived at London in Mav 1781, and was received with 

 enthufiafm bv the farviving friends and correfpondents of 

 his father, and was in a maimer domefticated under the roof 

 of fir Jofeph Banks, whofe friendfhip, kindnefs, and libe- 

 rality could not be exceeded ; neither could they have been 

 by any one more gratefully received. Here the ardent 

 Swedilii vifitor had every affiftance for the preparation of 

 feveral works on which he was intent, as a fyllem of the 

 Mammalia, a botanical treatife on the Lily ai d Palm tribes, 

 and nevk- editions of feveral of his father's llandard books. 

 None of thefe however have yet been printed. An attack of 

 the jaundice rendered half his ftay in England uncomfort- 

 able as well as ufelefs to him. He proceeded to Paris in 

 the latter end of Augull 1781, accompanied by the amiable 

 and celebrated Brouffonet, with whom he became acquainted 

 at London. His reception in France was not lets flatter- 

 ing than what he h^d experienced in England. He was 

 enriched with duplicates of Commerfon's plant.s from the 

 herbarium of the excellent Thouin, which amounted to 

 about HOC fpecies, and had never been communicated to 

 any other foreigner. In the following fpring he vifited 

 Holland, tracing with filial piety every veiligc of his fa- 

 ther's fteps at Harcecamp and eliewliere, and receiving, as 

 he had done at Paris and London, ample contributions for 

 his herbarium, library, and mufeum of fliells and infers. 

 The next place in w^hich he made any flay was Hamburgh, 

 where feveral of his own friends were already fettled, and 

 from hence he returned by Copenhagen and Stockholm, 

 vifiting his friend Fabricius at Ivel, and his patron Baron 

 Q 2 Alllroemrr 



