202 



REMARKABLE OCCURENCES 



arduous science. Its vestment became more appropriated to its beauty* 

 Nature now gained friends among the ladies, and even on tiie throne.. 

 Besides the Queen of Sweden, there was afterwards a't the head of these 

 a young German Princess, who was the greatest female botanist ever 

 known. This was Carolina Louisa of Baden, Princess of Hesstt^ 

 Darmstadt, whose early loss the sciences had to bewail in 1783, ivt 

 the thirty-second year of her age. Her extraordinary love of the study 

 of natural history, and her respe6l for Linn^us are most authenticallj)'' 

 attested in the following letter, which the lateBjOERNsxAHt, his coun* 

 tryman, wrote during his residence at Carhruhe in 1774 : j^niii-O/^ • 



" I hear that you are spoken of every day at court. Y'OU are the 

 " obje6l of the conversation of the reigning Prince and Princess. 

 «' They are not only lovers of natural history, but so versed in 

 " that science as to excite astonishment. They can enumerate your 

 " whole system according to all its genera and species. They know 

 " every tree, every plant in the hot-houses of this city, which are 

 " full of foreign and domestic plants, collefted in all parts of the 

 « world, and completely classed and arranged according to your me- 

 « thod. 



" The Princess has an excellent cabinet of natural history, but she 

 has nothing from Sweden, except the polar star, which illumines her 

 " path through the whole range of nature, I mean the works and writings 

 *' of a celebrated Knight of that order. I wish to God you or your son 

 " would come hither I Her Highness has charged me to invite yoti 

 " both in her name. She promises you a fine and commodious resi- 

 " dence, and hangings as beautiful as those at Hammarby (the villa of 

 " LiNN.«us). For 1 mentioned to her Highness what fine flowers 



" had 



