LINN^US IN HOLLAND. 83 



in ichthyology, the science to which he had wholly devoted his labours. 

 From England he came to Holland^ where he wished to take his degree 

 of Dodor, but want of money prevented him, and his family circum- 

 stances were still more unfavourable than those of Linn.^us. The 

 latter became his patron. He recommended him to the celebrated 

 apothecary Seb a, at Ajnsterdam'^, a peculiar loverof natural history, who 

 had colle£led a great quantity of natural curiosities, and began to describe 

 *hem, but needed some assistance owing to his advanced stage of life. 

 Seb A received Artedi as his assistant. " No sooner," says Linn^^ius, 

 " had I finished my Fmidamenta Botanica, than I hastened to commu- 

 " nicate them to Artedi 3 he shewed me on his part the work which 

 . " had been the result of several years ftudy, his Philosophia Ichthyologica, 

 *' and other manuscripts. I was delighted with his familiar converse; 

 " meanwhile overwhelmed with business, I grew impatient at his 

 " detaining me too long. Alas! had I known that this was the 

 " last visit, the laft words of my friend, how fain would I have tarried 

 *' to prolong his exiftence !" 



In a short time after, on the 25th of September 1735, Artedi was 

 in company at Seba's — he left his house to return home — the night 

 was dark, unknown the way — he comes to the brink of a canal 

 not inclosed with rails, in which he falls — his shrieks and moans are 

 not heard — the struggles of his agony are unwitnessed — he falls, far 

 from his native land, in the bloom of youth, a viftim to that ele- 

 ment the inhabitants of which were so familiar to him, and to the better 



* Seba died on the 21ft of May, 1736, in the 74th year of his age. The work which 

 chiefly distinguished his name in the scientific world, is entituled Locupletlsslmi rerum iVa- 

 turalium thesauri accurata descrlptio, et iconibus artificioslssimus express'io ; Amstelod. torn. 

 iv. with 449 plates. 



M 2 knowledge 



