8 
INFANCY OF 
requisite — and this competence he could not expeX from a father, 
•whose circumstances bordered more on penury than opulence. His 
father was also destitute of that interest and those favourable connexions 
which could hold forth the gilded prospeXs of preferment in the church. 
These considerations and scruples could not therefore be deemed 
quite unworthy of paternal foresight. Fortunately, however, those 
objeXions were all done away. A physician arrogated to himself the. 
merit of first forming the genius who afterwards raised himself the 
pride of Sweden and the boast of the learned world. The name of 
this man ought never to be forgotten in the history of his pupil. It 
was John Rothmann, physician at Wexicoe, a man of consummate 
skill, who gained celebrity among his countrymen by divers learned 
produXions. He was also professor of medicine in the college of that 
city. Here he took notice of the genius of Linnaeus, of that spirit 
of penetration and knowledge so unusual to the youths of his age. 
He got intelligence of his father’s design of removing him from col- 
lege — a flower which was on the point of yielding the most luxuriant 
blossom was to be cropt by the profane and rustic hands of those who 
could not foresee its future utility. Such an event could never be in- 
different to the fond sensations of a professor of science. 
Rothmann applied to the father of Linn.'Eus, described the dili- 
gence of his son, his peculiar endowments for his favourite studies, 
and conjured him, by the most persuasive and the most urgent reasons, 
to let him study physic and botany, since his inclination and genius pro- 
mised, that he would once become eminent in those professions. En- 
omiums, so new, so well founded, mixed the joyful transport of the 
father with regret and gloomy irresolution. Had the DoXor sent him 
tes- 
