298 THE LIFE OF THE YOUNGER LINN^US. 



the Royal Society of London, that great lover of nature, who so much dis- 

 tinguished himself, and acquired such transcendent merit as a promoter 

 of natural history, by the great sums which he expends upon natural 

 curiosities, by his own enthusiasm for that science, and by his partici- 

 pating in Captain Cook's second voyage round the world. The man- 

 ner in which Sir Han s Slo an k had received the father, and the recep- 

 tion wliich the son now met with, formed a most striking contrast. Sir 

 Joseph was an ancient correspondent and friend of his father's, and re- 

 ceived the younger LiNN^us, whose countryman and colleague" Dr. 

 SoLANDER had accompanied him on his voyage round the world, and 

 was now his intimate friend and assistant, with all that warmth of 

 friendship and kindness, which, under similar circumstances, can possi- 

 bly be expressed by the noblest and rnost elevated mind- 

 Sir Joseph made Linn^us welcome to make his house his own du- 

 ring his stay in England, and the latter found in it the most sele6l com- 

 pany. The rare colleftion of natural treasures brought together from all 

 parts of the world, especially those from the new discovered countries in 

 the South Seas, which he saw at Sir Joseph's, was the greatest treat for 

 his curiosity and his love of knowledge. This colleQion, on account of 

 the copiousness, the rarity, and value of its contents, is the first of 

 which any private individual could ever boast in Europe. Linn^us 

 viewed, and examined article by article, and saw more curiosities here 

 than he would have observed, had he travelled himself for a long series 

 of years in the remotest quarters of the globe. Sir Joseph, with his 

 wonted liberality, enriched his visitor with a number of duplicate-plants- 

 and other natural curiosities. The British Museum, that great repository 

 of natural science and art, whose immense treasures were then principally, 

 a under 



