22 



enabled him successfully to hold his own with all 

 comers; when, I say, these things were borne in upon 

 me, I burst into tears. Anticipating, further, as I did, 

 that all the knowledge he had acquired, which would 

 in fulness of time have conferred undying fame upon 

 himself, have reflected unfading glory upon his country 

 and have rendered the scientific world untold services, 

 was through his untimely death in imminent danger of 

 being irrevocably obliterated, I perceived that the de- 

 votion I cherished for my friend demanded it of me, 

 that I should fulfil my share of those vows we had 

 aforetime most solemnly made to each other, that the 

 one of us who should survive the other would regard 

 it as a sacred duty to give to the world what observa- 

 tions and investigations might be left behind by the 

 one who was gone." 



In the carrying out of this pious resolve, however, 

 Linnaeus was confronted with serious obstacles. On appli- 

 cation to Artedi's relatives in Umea, he readily obtained 

 their consent to his taking over all the manuscripts; 

 the only condition they made was, that they should be 

 published, which Linnaeus faithfully promised to do 

 without any alteration whatever in their tenor. So far, 

 so good; but when he applied to the man with whom 

 Artedi had lodged, he found that there was no possibil- 

 ity of persuading him to hand over the manuscripts, 

 owing to the claim he had upon the deceased man's 

 estate for arrears of rent and accommodation provided. 

 As mentioned above, Seba had not remunerated Artedi 

 at all for the services he had rendered, and consequently 

 the latter had been obliged to run into debt. All the 

 efforts Linnaeus made to come to terms with the land- 

 lord proved futile; he obdurately insisted on his rights 

 and refused to yield up any of the effects Artedi had 

 left. Under these circumstances Linnaeus bethought him- 

 self of applying to the man in whose service Artedi 

 had been working and on whose behalf he had in- 

 curred the debt, in the hope that he would be willing, 

 as an act of Christian charity if he did not feel it to be 



