L I N N y£U S 
18 
hapless fate. In the compassionate beneficence of his countrymen 
and fellow-students, he found, however, some temporary relief in his in- 
digent state. He picked up a meal here and there, and was glad to cover 
himself with their left-off clothes. He had not even a sous to purchase a 
pair of shoes. Imperious necessity compelled him to have recourse to 
the trade which his father had once resolved to bind him to. He put 
cards in the worn-out shoes which were given him by his comrades, and 
stitched and mended them with the bark of trees, to enable him at least 
to go out to colleft plants. No great* or eminent man of our age, not 
even Benjamin Franklin, the American printer, ever struggled 
with so many difficulties and adversities, while endeavouring to reach 
the towering height at which his genius made him aspire. Voltaire, 
Haller, Newton, and Leibnitz, had parents who were possessed 
of property to smoothe their path. In the installation-speech made by 
Linnaeus in 1741, on entering on his office of professor, he offered 
public thanks to Providence for having so wonderfully supported and 
relieved him under the hardest pressure of poverty, and in other mis- 
fortunes*. 
Difficulties and adverse circumstances have frequently been the 
school in which great men have been formed, and they also helped 
to build the greatness of Linn-eus. A less energetic character would 
have been crushed by despair; but our hero found in them fresh in- 
centives to perseverance and fame. The struggle against fate roused 
his every endeavour. He continued his vigils and exertions in his 
darling science. “ Methinks,” says the celebrated Dean Be;ck, “Lin- 
* Gratias tibi, Deus omnipatens ago, quod in vita mete cursu, inter gramissima pauper- 
tatis onera et alia qutenjis incommoda omtiipotento auxilio tuo mibi semper adfuisti. 
(( 
1 
NjEUS 
