OF THE LIFE OF LINNjEUS. 
24 1 
fulness. The tree had been removed to the botanical garden. Before 
the gardener had received any instru&ions respefting its management, 
he observed the insefts, which were creeping upon its leaves, and 
deeming them to be the destru&ion of the leaves, he gathered them 
with great trouble and care, killed them, and thus annihilated the great 
and bright hope which Linn^us had conceived of introducing cochi 
neal as a natural produ&ion into Sweden. This accident caused so 
much derangement in his frame, as to be followed by a most violent- 
nervous head-ach. 
Nature again operated by her magic power upon his health, even 
when it was quite impaired and reduced in the year 1774*. Lieut. Col 
Dahlberc, who was afterwards knighted, returned from Surinam , 
where he had remained for a considerable time on his estates, and brought 
with him one hundred and eighty-six species of curious plants, the pro- 
duction of that country, as a present for the King of Sweden. They 
had been preserved in a quite new and excellent way, in spirits of 
wine, and still bore the fresh appearance of nature to such a degree, 
that the most minute part of their flowers could be accurately ex- 
amined. The King resolved to make a present of this valuable col- 
lection to the great naturalist of his empire, persuaded that there was 
* Linn, m/s was in this instance exactly in the same situation as J. J. Rousseau, who 
wrote in 1767, in his moments of melancholy, the following letter: — “ Je dois tna vie aux 
“ plantes ; ce n’est pas ce que je leur dois du bon ; mais je leur dois, dc couler encore avec 
“ agrement quelques intervalles, au milien des amertumes, dont elle est inondee. Tant 
“ que j’betborise, je ne suis pas malheureux ; et je vous reponds, sil’on me laiisoit faire, je 
“ ne cesserai tout le restede ma -vie d'herboriser du matin au soir. — J’heiboriserai, mon cher 
*< hfite, jusqu’ a la mort et au dela : car s'ily a des fieurs aux champ Elysees, j’en forinerai 
“ des couronnes pour les hornmes vrais, francs et tels, qu’ assurement j’avois merite d’en 
“ trouver sur la terre.” — See second Supplement a la collection des Oeuvres de J. J. Rous- 
seau, tom. iii. Geneve 1789, p. 305 and 409. 
I 1 
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