AND HONOURS PAID TO HIS MEMORY. 245 



days. With him died the most immortal man, whom his country ever 

 yielded to the sciences. The year of his death was remarkable for the 

 exit of several other great men. Voltaire and J. J. Rousseau 

 died in that same year, and Haller terminated his bright career one 

 month sooner than Linnaeus, on the 12th of December 1777. 



The death of Linn^us was an universal loss to the science of 

 natu ral history — a loss to the University of Upsal, of which he had been 

 the most celebrated professor for whole centuries, nay, since its very 

 existence;^ — ^and, finally, a loss to the Swedish nation at large, which 

 claimed him as her fellow-citizen. The mourning of the University 

 was due to the great splendor which had fled with his spirit. His corpse 

 was most solemnly removed to the cathedral of Ups,aU and there com- 

 mitted to the tomb. All the professors, officers and students of the 

 University followed his funeral ; — and eighteen dodors, formerly pupils 

 of Lin us supported the pall The Academy of Belki, Ltttrei^ 

 History and Antiquities at Stockholm^ which was institued in 1753 and 

 renewed in 1786, offered a golden prize medal worth sixteen ducats, 

 for the best panegyric on Linn^us, either in verse or in prose, writ- 

 ten in Latin, French or Italian. Already in 1786, a French specimen 

 was sent in; but it afforded as little satisfaction as those which were 

 delivered some time after. The Academy by command of the late 

 King, offered a second golden prize-medal for the best Latin or 

 Swedish inscription, to be engraved upon the monument which has 

 since been ereBed to Linn^us, at the entrance of the new botanical 

 garden* In the year 1781 a specimen appeared, but its composition 



did 



• The Authorreceived the following letter onthissubjeft, dated 179^ :—«' Rex noster 

 " Augiistissimus, proposito in Academia Regia Litterarum Humaniorum, Historianim et Anti.- 

 3 quitatum 



