LINN^US PROFESSOR AT UPSAL, 153 



an appointment militated against the call and will of the muses. To 

 make each of them great and useful in his own branch, a change of 

 offices was requisite. Both were sensible of the impropriety of their 

 respe6live stations, and by a friendly agreement, with the consent of the 

 Chancellor of the University, the two professorships, whose emolu- 

 ments were equal, were mutually exchanged in the beginning of 1742. 

 Thus LiNN^us was raised to that sphere of operation which he con- 

 sidered as the happiness of his life, and which was so adequate to his 

 zeal and endowments. He direfted his first efforts towards the im- 

 provement of the botanical garden at Upsal, which had been established 

 after the middle of the last century by the celebrated Swedish naturalist 

 Glaus Rudbeck senior. The novelty of the enterprise afforded to 

 the latter great applause and support. Through the liberality of King 

 Charles Gustavus, and the zeal of the Chancellor of the Univer- 

 sity, the garden was soon put in a good state. It still remained in an 

 improved condition in the reign of Charles XI. The two Ru dbecks, 

 both father and son, enriched it with the plants they had collefted in 

 their travels. But at the beginning of the present century it ceased 

 to be one of the most flourishing botanical gardens of Europe. The 

 dreadful conflagration which converted the best part of Upsal into a 

 heap of ruins in 1702, destroyed it entirely. During the unfortunate 

 reign of Charles XII. there were no hopes of its establishment. 

 There, was, indeed, no money to purchase plants. Rudbeck grew 

 old, and none remained after him to take care of it. In short, the 

 garden had decayed into a trad of pasture ground to graze the sheep 

 and cows. It did not even contain fifty foreign plants. 



