OF THE LIFE OF LINN^US. 243 



This was the period at which his health declined entirely. In his younger 

 days, he used to be afflicted with catarrhs and the tooth-ach, and in his 

 maturity with the most violent meagrim ; but he now began to complaiu 

 of a pain in the lower part of his back, in his loins. In the year 1774 Mr. 

 Pennant, the celebrated Zoologist wrote to him, to intreat him not to 

 forget his promise of writing the natural history of Lapland, which he 

 had first made in the preface of his Flora Lapponica. The answer which 

 LiNN^us returned to Mr. Pennant's request purported : " that it 

 would now be too late for him to begin. — Nicnc nimis sero inciperem." 



" Me quoque debilitat series immensa laborum i 

 " Ante meum tempus cogor et esse senex." 



His public a£livity continued however to last till 1776, when he 

 had attained the 68th year of his age. Then the feeble and infirm 

 state of his health suffered a fresh shock ; his senses then seemed to 

 be worn out, and his tongue, palsied as it were, almost denied its 

 office. With that natural flow of chearfulness which was so peculiar to 

 him, he thus describes his situation in his own diary: — « LtNN.«;us 



limps, can hardly walk, speaks unintelligibly, and is scarce able to 

 " write." — Even in this melancholy and painful state, nature still re- 

 mained his only comfort and relief. He used to be carried to his 

 museum, where he viewed the treasures which he had collefled with 



ceeded soon after — Such was the general assertion and inference of agreat number of persons, 

 ■when this tnelancholy accident happened at Upsal.—A celebrated foreigner, who was there 

 at that time, seems to question that the publication of the letters written to Haller should 

 have had so fatal an influence upon the life of LinnjEUS; — " I do neither believe, nor have 

 I observed," says he, " that Linnaeus felt any particular vexation at the printing of his 

 " letters to Haller."— It would be much more pleasant to iis to refute than confirm such 

 a dijagreeable incident. 



