z66 



CHARACTER OF LINN.EUS. 



" To the praise of Linn^us I must farther owiij" says Mr. Ehr- 

 HART, the celebrated botanist at Hanover*, — " that notwithstanding 

 " his parsimony, he neither did nor would accept a single penny as an 

 «« honorary for the leflures which he gave me." — " You are a Swiss,'* 

 said he once to me, « and the only Swiss that visits me. I shall take 

 " no money of you, but feel a pleasure, in telling you all I know 

 " gratis." 



Notwithstanding those liberal sentiments, gold, the noblest of metals, 

 did not a little recreate his sight, and inspire him with fondness. " And 

 " why," says Dean B^ck, " should gold not have been amassed by 

 « him, who hoarded up all that was precious or beautiful in the lap 

 " of nature." 



In the common social intercourse he was fond of conversation, 

 kind and condescending j:owards his inferiors, — and at the same time, 

 a prepossessed and enthusiastic friend of reputation and honour. His 

 coat of arms bore for its motto the words, with which Anchises 

 spirits up vEneas, and Pallas invokes Hercules : " Famam Ex- 



»♦ TENDERE FaCTIS." " To SPREAD FAME BY DEEDst". The 



truth of this motto he fully realized. Honour was in him like in other 

 eminent men, the source of his greatness. The liberal will in other re- 

 spefts hardly deem it necessary to gloss over by apologies that manifest 

 tatioa of self-love, which is generally inseparable from true honour J;. 



LlNNiEUS- 



• la a Letter to the Author. 



t " Et divbitamus adhuc virtutem extenders fadis ?"— Virgil. ^En. Liis. VI. Vers. So^. 

 '* Sed famam extendere faftis 



— <' Hoc Virtutis opus." Virgil, ^n. Lib. X. Vers. 468 and 469. 



I The late celebrated Chevalier Peter Wargentin, Secretary of the Royal Academy 

 at Stockholm, gives the following opinion in a Letter dated Stockholm, July 23, 1751. 



" Apud 



