L I N N M U S IN HOLLAND. 
8t 
With labor and social recreation the winter-season glided veiy 
pleasantly away in Holland , and the ensuing year 1736 opened 
with a prospeft which totally changed for some time the resolution 
of Linnaeus to return to his country. Boerhaave, who had been 
informed that he rvas at Amsterdam , having already evinced towards 
him affe£tion and esteem, now granted him his patronage. Docloi 
George Cliffort, Burgomaster of Amsterdam , and one of the Di- 
reftors of the Dutch East India Company, the most zealous lover of 
natural science, expended vast sums of his princely fortune to pro- 
cure plants and natural curiosities; and was, in this respefl:, like She- 
rard in England as a private gentleman, the most distinguished and 
most extraordinary person in Holland , and perhaps even in all the 
world. These treasures, brought from all quarters of the globe, he 
he hoarded up in his Museum and botanical garden at Hartecampi a 
villa belonging to him near Harlem. But these valuable articles were 
still left without order or scientific description. Cliffort wished for 
a man adequate to fulfil this task. 
Boerhaave was his physician. Cliffort one day paid him a 
visit at Leyden. « Shall I give you some good advice,” said the former. 
a You have plenty of every thing, yet there is one thing alone you ha" 
« not got to render your life completely happy. You arc accustomed 
« live high, hence you are so frequently troubled with hypochondriac 
« complaints. You must keep a physician of your own, to prescribe and 
order your diet, and to take daily care of your health in cases of a 
« more serious nature he may consult me.”—' * Well proposed!” replied 
Cliffort, « but where shall I find such a clever and skilful man?”— 
« Never mind, this I shall make my own business. I know a young 
« Swede, who is now at Amsterdam , it is him I shall recommend as the 
« best 
M 
