LINNAEUS. 
3 
in the banns of wedlock with Christina Br.oder.son, the daughter of 
his predecessor in office. His ancestors were peasants. Several of his re- 
latives, who had quitted the plough for the Muses, in the last century, 
changed their family name with their profession, and borrowed the names 
of Lindelius, orTinANDER, (Linden-tree-man) ol a lofty Linden- 
tree, which still stood in our time, in the vicinity ol their native place, 
between Tomsboda and Linnhult ; a custom not unfrequent in Sweden , to 
take freffi appellations from natural obje&s. The father of Linn* us, 
as the first learned man of his family, could not withstand following the 
example which his kindred had let before him. He likewife borrowed 
of the fame tree a name which his son rendered afterwards famous and 
immortal in every quarter of the globe. 
Our Charles was the first pledge of the young couple’s mutual love. 
He was destined for the pulpit ; a destination which his parents con- 
sidered as the happiest, and through which they flattered themfelves 
their son would one day become the prop of their old age. But, 
fortunately for science, this plan was overturned, even by those who 
felt its execution nearest to their hearts ; — they themselves sowed, as 
it were, in the cradle, a seed in the infant’s breast, which, in process 
of time, yielded the finest fruits. 
The father was a singular lover of gardening. The smallness of his 
income, obliged him, at the same time, to make the best of husbandry. 
Flowers were the first things they gave the smiling babe, and it seemed 
to take a natural delight in the variety of their colours. The fragrant 
play-things thus instilled in the infant’s breast an early passion for the 
beauties of Nature, which a concurrence of favourable circumsta . 
fostered and increased during the subsequent stages of his infancy. In 
the 
B 2 
