90 LINNAEUS IN ENGLAND. 



The latter visited him a third time, and met with a more pleasant and 

 polite reception, obtained the plants which he requested for Clif- 

 roRx's garden, kept up ever after a friendly acquaintance and cor- 

 respondence with Miller, and the garden of Chelsea was finally ar- 

 ranged according to the Linn/ean system. 



Yrom London, Linnaeus went to Oxford. The greatest and most 

 ingenius botanist in that University, was, at that time, John James- 

 DiLLENius, by birth a Hessian, formerly professor of botany at the 

 University of Giessm, who died in 1747. He met with the same pa- 

 tronage on the part of a rich Englishman, which Linn.-eus did on the 

 part of Cliffort, This patron was Will am Sherard, whose 

 brother James was also a great lover of natural history. Sherard,- 

 as a private man, was the most zealous promoter of natural science 

 England could then boast of He had long resided' at Smyrna as Consul, . 

 and he colle£led a great number of plants and natural curiosities. Ons 

 his return to England he established the celebrated botanical garden-^ 

 at his seat at £liham, which was described by Dillenius. (Hortus- 

 Elihamensis, Oxon, 1732 J He intended to continue the great work of 

 Bauhin (TTivcil Theatri BotaniciJ, but death arrested him in his enter- 

 prize in 1738. To render his colletiions useful to posterity, he de- 

 posited a sum of money to establish a professorship at Oxford, for the 

 purpose of describing and arranging those colte61ions. Dillenius 

 obtained this office, he took upon him the prescribed literary labour,, 

 but could not accomplish it. His time was mostly taken up by his- 

 natural history of Mosses, (Historia Musconm, Oxon. 1741}. a classical, 

 ^ork, in which more than 600 species of mosses are desciibed, by, 



whi-ck 



