i8 LINN.EUS , 



hapless fate. In the compassionate beneficence of his countrymen 

 and fellow-students, he found, however, some temporary relief in his in- 

 digent state. He picked up a meal here and there, and was glad to cover 

 himself with their left-off clothes. He had not even a sous to purchase a 

 pair of shoes. Imperious necessity compelled him to have recourse to 

 the trade which his father had once resolved to bind him to. He put 

 cards in the worn-out shoes which were given him by his comrades, and 

 stitched and mended them with the bark of trees, to enable him at least 

 to go out to colle6l plants. No great, or eminent man of our age, not 

 even Benjamin Franklin, the American printer, ever struggled 

 with so many difficulties and adversities, while endeavouring to reach 

 the towering height at which his genius made him aspire. Voltaire, 

 Haller, Newton, and Leibnitz, had parents who were possessed 

 of property to smoothe their path. In the installation-speech made by 

 Linn it us in 1741, on entering on his office of professor, he offered 

 public thanks to Providence for having so wonderfully supported and 

 relieved him under the hardest pressure of poverty, and in other mis- 

 fortunes *. 



Difficulties and adverse circumstances have frequently been the 

 school in which great men have been formed, and they also helped 

 to build the greatness of Linn.^eus. A less energetic charafter would 

 have been crushed by despair; but our hero found in them fresh in- 

 centives to perseverance and fame. The struggle against fate roused 

 his every endeavour. He continued his vigils and exertions in his 

 darling science. " Methinks," says the celebrated Dean B.^ck, "Lin- 



* Grat'ias fibi, Deus omn'ipotens ago, quod in 'vitce mee cursu, inter gra'vissima pauper- 

 talis onera et alia quavis incommoda omnipotento auxilio tuo mihi semper adfuisti. 



" N^US 



