14 



latter "had the laugh of his friend", as he proceeded 

 to demolish with the pruning-shears of his relentless 

 logic the all too luxuriant offshoots of the other's fer- 

 tile fancy. But just as a wise pruning conduces to 

 strengthening a tree and causes it to bring forth fruit 

 more abundantly, so did the unsparing, yet always tem- 

 perate and kindly criticisms that Artedi passed upon 

 his friend Linnaeus' early scientific labours, contribute 

 not a little, we may safely conjecture, towards develop- 

 ing and bringing to maturity those great gifts with 

 which he was by nature endowed. Artedi's influence, 

 doubtless, made itself felt most in the department of 

 systematisation, for it was there that he was himself 

 strongest, as may be seen throughout the whole of his 

 own scientific production. The benefits were not wholly 

 on one side, however; for it may be presumed that 

 Artedi, who was "tardy and serious-minded", stood in 

 need of just that kind of stimulus which Linnaeus, with 

 his superabundant fertility of ideas, was so eminently 

 qualified to afford; and in temperament, too, Linnaeus, 

 a native of the milder, cheerier South of Sweden, would 

 exercise a beneficent influence upon his comrade from 

 the bleak forbidding North, by chasing away with the 

 exuberance of his youthful high spirits that gloomy 

 depression to which Northeners are wont to be prone. 

 Thus the two bosom friends were admirably suited to 

 one another and their friendly intercourse and cooper- 

 ation in scientific pursuits undoubtedly bore rich fruit 

 in their future productions. 



Of the participation of Artedi in the undergraduate 

 life of his time but few notices have come down to us. 

 Here and there in the pages of "Acta Nationis Anger- 

 mannica?" may be found a mention of his name; to 

 the effect that, for instance, he was promoted in his 

 seventh session to the class of 'Seniores' in his Nation 

 and was later elected 'Curator', or official Head and 

 Representative, of that undergraduate association; that 

 he did duty as Opposer at the keeping of an Act, and 

 that in 1734, at Easter, he undertook to hold a public 



