BOTANICAL REFORM. 
103 
Pontedera, shewed the errors and excellencies of each, and added the 
genera of plants according to the different authors in the margin of 
his own system. 
He soon had the pleasure to see his aspiring ambition gratified, and 
the sway of his method acknowledged. His friends, Van Royen 
and Gronov were the first who followed his dictates. The former 
published in 1739 a description of the plants of Virginia (Flora Vir- 
ginice ), in the completion of which he had been assisted by Linn.eus, 
and his technical nomenclature and descriptions. Thus with Sweden*, 
the Dutch were the first who did homage to this new botanical constitu- 
tion, though it was reje&ed by some proud aristocratic malecontents. 
The great number of friends and connexions whom Linnaeus had 
found in Holland, afforded him fine prospers and secured his subse- 
quent welfare. The Dutch wished to prevail on so valuable a man not 
to leave their country. It was proposed to him to make a botanical 
voyage at the expence of the republic to the Cape of Good Hope , with 
the promise of giving him on his return, a professorship of botany in a 
Dutch university. But LinnjEUs also slighted this offer, because he 
violently longed after his country, and after those bright hopes which 
he flattered himself to realize there. 
The beginning of the year 1738 was the dullest time Linnaeus pas- 
sed in Holland, Formerly he always was of a serene, unruffled and 
cheerful temper; but now disquietude and melancholy preyed upon 
him. The celebrity which he had gained, the remonstrances of his 
friends, in short, nothing could raise his depressed spirits. The hercu- 
* At Stockholm was published J. Eeerh. Ferber, Medici, Hortus Agerumensis, Se- 
cundum Methodum Sexualem Linnaei. 1 739. °^ v0 - 
2 
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