544 



DEATH OF LINN^US, 



so much labour, and manifested a particular delight in examining the 

 rarities and new produftions, which during the latter part of his life 

 had been brought him by M. Muxis from Carthagena and New Gre- 

 nada, and by his other pupils from the Cape of Good Hope and Asia, 



In the winter of 1776, his deplorable condition rose to the highest 

 degree of wretchedness. He had another apopleflic stroke, which 

 almost deadened his right side, in which he had most frequently felt 

 the pains. His situation exhibited the most melancholy pifture of the 

 decay of the human powers and greatness. His intelleftual faculties 

 wasted away like his body. The words which he uttered. He, who 

 in the prime of life had been the most systematic genius of this age, 

 were for the most part a chaos of confused and unconnefted ideas*. 

 It now became necessary to lead, support, carry, dress and feed him 

 by putting the viands into his mouth. His life began to prove an in- 

 tolerable burthen. Having been a prey to such agonizing suiferings 

 for upwards of a twelvemonth, and his illness having reached the cli- 

 max of the most excruciating torture, occasioned by a fever and the 

 stone, the Great Linn/eus expired in a gentle slumber, in the after- 

 noon, on the 10th of January 1778, after having led a life equally 

 aQive and meritorious, of seventy years, seven months, and seven 



* The following occurrence will farther serve to explain the miserable situation of Lin- 

 N^us at the above mentioned epoch. — Those who are acquainted with the general customs of 

 Germany and tlie rest of the Northern continent, well know, that every person of the better 

 class keeps a memorial-book, in which it is usual for every stranger or friend of respectabi- 

 lity to write down something td preserve his remembrance in .the mind cf the person who 

 presents the book. On the 26th of September 1776, a foreign literatus laid before Lin- 

 KjEus his memorial-book. The latter having set down his name in it, scribbled underneath 

 the word Profesior, in the following mixed Greek and Latin letters : 



P^ocpkeffor, 

 The Author copied this from an authentic document. 



days. 



