viii 



PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. 



merits, abounding with singular and remarkable incidents, 

 and most celebrated for wonderful vicissitudes and personal 

 achievements. 



Biographical essays and tra6ts on Lin us, we certainly 

 are not deficient in. The subjoined List contains a review 

 of all those which I could procure knowledge of. A variety 

 of authentic and valuable information has not yet been no- 

 ticed by the literary world. Of this description are the ac- 

 counts published at Hamburgh, those contained in the letters 

 to Baron Haller, &c. No colle£lion of fads had ever been 

 made, because no plan for a perfefl; and complete biography 

 had till now been projefted. The richness of those mere'y 

 nominal biographical trafts, is therefore reduced to a small 

 number of materials, of real intrinsic value, consisting of frag- 

 ments and sketches, the purport of which is a mere repetition, 

 or a copy of two original portraits in miniature. These have, 

 however, been so much mutilated and disfigured by false fea- 

 tures and imperfeft skill in foreign countries, that the original 

 touches of the pencil of truth scarcely remain distinguish- 

 able. False statements are always the more prejudicial to ge- 

 nuine faft, if time has so strongly stamped them with credit, 

 that they ultimately convert history into fiction. 



But in this work a favourable circumstance intervenes — 

 the surviving friends, pupils and evidences of Linnaus. I 



had 



