t64 HABITS AND MODE OF LIVING OF LINNvEUS. 



sanguine temper he became very susceptible to transitions from joy to 

 sadness, and from these to anger. His heart was downright probity 

 itself, and from his lips streamed candor, truth and virtue. Faithful 

 and afFeftionate to his friends, he never even retaliated upon his ene- 

 mies their malice and enmity ; he was not apt to forget an offence 

 easily, and used to say : " I will not suffer myself to be deceived a 

 "second time." — All the concerns of house-keeping and domestic 

 ceconomy he entrusted to the care of his spouse, who ruled the family. 

 He was a true and tender husband, and his fondness as a father was 

 not less remarkable than his other good qualifications. 



His mansion was neat and filled with handsome furniture, he never 

 disliked feasting his friends ; but the poverty which had once oppressed 

 him in his youth, would not permit him to be lavish of expence. " In 

 all that related to his science, to natural curiosities, books, corres^ 

 pondence ; or if he saw a person that really needed relief, for instance, 

 a widowed mother with infant orphans, nothing could then restrain his 

 liberality and beneficence. The excellent colleftions of literary and 

 natural treasures which he left behind him, prove what considerable ex- 

 pence he was at, as a literatus and a friend of nature. We will illu- 

 strate this assertion by the following comparatively speaking diminutive 

 instance: — In 1764 he wrote thus to the celebrated Austrian naturalist 

 J. A. Scop o LI, who was at that time a physician at htria in Carinthia, 

 and became afterwards professor of chemistry and botany at Pavia, 

 where he terminated his meritorious life May 3, 1788 : " After many 

 « vain endeavours, 1 have at last received your Description of the Carin- 

 *' thian inseBs from Holland. The postage alone stands me in about 

 «' three ducats, but I do not grudge the expence. That work has af- 

 3 « forded 



