OF THE LIFE OF LINNtEUS. 



341 



fulness. The tree had been removed to the botanical garden. Before 

 the gardener had received any instruftions respefting its management, 

 he observed the insefts, which were creeping upon its leaves, and 

 deeming them to be the destruQion of the leaves, he gathered them 

 with great trouble and care, killed them, and thus annihilated the great 

 and bright hope which Linn^us had conceived of introducing cochi- 

 neal as a natural production into Sweden. This accident caused so 

 much derangement in his frame, as to be followed by a most violent 

 nervous head-ach. 



Nature again operated by her magic power upon his health, even 

 when it was quite impaired and reduced in the year 1774*. Lieut. Col. 

 Dahlbero, who was afterwards knighted, returned from Surinam^ 

 where he had remained for a considerable time on his estates, and brought 

 with him one hundred and eighty-six species of curious plants, the pro- 

 duction of that country, as a present for the King of Sweden. They 

 had been preserved in a quite new and excellent way, in spirits of 

 wine, and still bore the fresh appearance of nature to such a degree, 

 that the most minute part of their flowers could be accurately ex- 

 amined. The King resolved to ^make a present of this valuable col- 

 leftion to the great naturalist of his empire, persuaded that there was 



• LiNN^us was in this instance exaflly in the same situation as J. J. Rousseau, who 

 wrote in 1767, in his moments of melancholy, the following letter: — " Je dois ma njie aux 

 " flantes ; ce n'est pas ce que je leur dois du bon ; mais je leur dois, de couler encore avec 

 <* agrement quelques intervalles, au milien des amertumes, dont elle est inondee. Tant 



que fheiiorise, je ne suis pas maiheureux ; et je 'vous reponds, sil'on me laissoit falre, je 

 " ne cesserai tout le restede ma aiie d'herboriser du matin au soir. — J'herboriserai, mon cher 



hote, jusqu' a la mort et au dela : car s'ily a des fleurs aux champ Elyshs, j'en formerai 

 " des couronnes pour les hommes vrais, francs et tels, qu' assurement j'avois merite d'en 

 " trouver sur la terre." — See second Supplement a la coUediondes Oeuvres de J. J. Rous- 

 seau, torn, iii. Geneve 17S9, p. 305 and 409. 



none 



