LINN.EUS. 3 



in the banns of wedlock with ChristinaBroderson, the daughter of 

 his predecessor in office. His ancestors were peasants. Several of his re- 

 latives, who had quitted the plough for the Muses, in the last century, 

 changed their family name with their profession, and borrowed the names 

 of LiNDELius, or TiLiANDER, (Linden-tree-man) of a lofty Linden- 

 tree, which still stood in our time, in the vicinity of their native place, 

 between Tomsboda and Linnhult; a custom not unfrequentin Sweden, to 

 take frefli appellations from natural objefts. The father of Linn/Eus, 

 as the first learned man of his family, could not withstand following the 

 example which his kindred had fet before him. Ke likewife borrowed 

 of the fame tree a name which his son rendered afterwards famous and 

 immortal in every quarter of the globe. 



Our Charles was the first pledge of the young couple's mutual love. 

 He was destined for the pulpit; a destination which his parents con- 

 sidered as the happiest, and through which they flattered themfelves 

 their son would one day become the prop of their old age. But, 

 fortunately for science, this plan was overturned, even by those who 

 felt its execution nearest to their hearts ; — they themselves sowed, as 

 it were, in the cradle, a seed in the infant's breast, which, in process 

 of time, yielded the finest fruits. 



The father was a singular lover of gardening. The smallness of his 

 income, obliged him, at the same time, to make the best of husbandry. 

 Flowers were the first things they gave the smiling babe, and it seemed 

 to take a natural delight in the variety of their colours. The fragrant 

 play-things thus instilled in the infant's breast an early passion for the 

 beauties of Nature, which a concurrence of favourable circumstances 

 fostered and increased during the subsequent stages of his infancy. In 



B 2 the 



