180 TRAVELLING PUPILS OF LINNAEUS. 
trated, and he returned to Up sal, where he published in the year 1762 
his Planta Alstroemeria. In the following year the horizon of his fate 
became somewhat more serene. Through the recommendation of Lin- 
naeus he was called to Peter sburgh, to be inspector of the cabinet of 
natural curiosities belonging to M. Kruse, first physician to the Em- 
press of Russia, and counsellor of state. He suffered shipwreck at 
Narva , and lost the best part of his effects. In 1765 was made pro- 
fessor of the medical college and inspector of the botanical garden. 
His unbounded passion for study had a very sinister influence upon 
his health. He became subjeCt to obstructions in the abdomen, and 
consequently to extreme fits of melancholy. He shot himself on his 
last travels through the Russian empire, at Casan in Tartary , in the 
night of the 20th of March 1774. Thus despair terminated the life of 
a man who had been too great a slave to science ever to enjoy happi- 
ness and social hilarity *. 
To the above ill-fated persons may be added the celebrated J. J. 
Bjoern stahl. He certainly made the Belles Lettres his chief study, 
yet at the same time he had frequented the Linnaean leCtures upon na- 
tural history. After twelve years peregrination he ended his career on 
the 12th of July 1779, in the forty-ninth year of his age, at Solonichi in 
Macedonia. The patriotism of his countrymen honoured his memory 
by medals, and his tomb with a marble monument. 
These were the six pupils of Linnalus, the six ambassadors of 
Flora, who were stopped in their mission by premature death. We 
shall now speak of those whose destinies proved more auspicious. 
* See J. P. Falk’s Supplements to the Topographical Knowledge of the Russian Empire. 
Narrative of his Travels from 1768 to 1773. St. Petersburg)!, 1786, oftavo, in German. 
2 Besides 
