8 INFANCY OF 



requisite — and this competence he could not expe6l from a father, 

 whose circumstances bordered more on penury than opulence. His 

 father was also destitute of that interest and those favourable connections 

 which could hold forth the gilded prospers of preferment in the church. 



These considerations and scruples could not therefore be deemed 

 quite unworthy of paternal foresight. Fortunately, however, those 

 objeQions were all done away. A physician arrogated to himself the 

 merit of first forming the genius who afterwards raised himself the 

 pride of Sweden and the boast of the learned world. The name of 

 this man ought never to be forgotten in the history of his pupil. It 

 was John Rothmann, physician at Wexicoe, a man of consummate 

 skill, who gained celebrity among his countrymen by divers learned 

 produftions. He was also professor of medicine in the college of that 

 city. Here he took notice of the genius of Linn/eus, of that spirit 

 of penetration and knowledge so unusual to the youths of his age. 

 He got intelligence of his father's design of removing him from col- 

 lege — a flower which was on the point of yielding the most luxuriant 

 blossom was to be cropt by the profane and rustic hands of those who 

 could not foresee its future utility. Such an event could never be in- 

 different to the fond sensations of a professor of science. 



Rothmann applied to the father of Linn.«us, described the dili- 

 gence of his son, his peculiar endowments for his favourite studies, 

 and conjured him, by the most persuasive and the most urgent reasons, 

 to let him study physic and botany, since his inclination and genius pro- 

 mised, that he would once become eminent in those professions. En- 

 comiums, so new, so well founded, mixed the joyful transport of the 

 father with regret and gloomy irresolution. Had the Doftor sent him 



tes- 



