now expedited to reap honours and respeft, as the reward of his long 
noble exertions. But how soon did he experience the truth of the 
adage, which tells us, that a prophet is no where less valued than in 
his own country. The treatment which Haller met with on his first 
return to Bern , and that which fell to the share of many other great 
men, was also reserved for Linnjeus. Celebrated and respcbled 
abroad, he now was a stranger in his native land, and the sport of ob- 
loquy and derision. The winter of 1738 nipt the laurels he had 
gathered in Holland. The rude climate of Sweden did not seem pro- 
pitious to their growth. For the sake of his daily support he now be- 
gan to follow the advice of his intended father-in-law, by applying him- 
' self to the praftice of medicine. But ^.scu lap i u s, at his first setting 
out, proved as unkind as Flora. Nobody would entrust a botanist 
with the curing of patients. 
This perplexed situation still continued in the beginning of 
1739. Haller resolved to become the benefaftor of Linnaeus. He 
reserved for him his own professorship of botany at Goettingen. 
The following are the contents of the letter, which Haller had 
already written to him, on the 24th of November 1738. 
« Be happy in your destinies! You, of whom Flora conceives greater 
<c hopes than of all other botanists. Return once more to gentler 
« climes! If ever my country recalls me to its bosom, — and this I hope 
« w m be the case— I have pitched upon you, if you like the offer, to be 
« the heir of the garden of this city, and of all my dignities. I have 
tc already mentioned it to those at whose disposal all is left*. 
And 
* Tu a quo Flora sperat plura quam ab omni alio botanico, utere quaeso felieibus fatis, et 
iliquando ad mitiora climata redi. Si unquam me patria repetit, et spero repetituram, te 
quidcra, 
