OF THE LIFE OF LINN/EUS. 
243 
This was the period at which his health declined entirely. In his younger 
days, he used to be afflifted with catarrhs and the tooth-ach, and in his 
maturity with the most violent meagrim ; but he now began. to complain 
of a pain in the lower part of his back in his loins. In the year 1774 Mr. 
Pennant, the celebrated Zoologist wrote to him, to intreat him not to 
forget his promise of writing the natural history of Lapland , which he 
had first made in the preface of his Flora Lapponica. The answer which 
Linnxus returned to Mr. Pennant’s request purported : “ that it 
would now be too late for him to begin. — Nunc nimis sero incipercm." 
« Me -quoque debilitat series immensa laborum ; 
. “ Ante meum tempus cogor et esse senex.*' 
His public activity continued however to last till 1776, when he 
had attained the 68th year of his age. Then tire feeble and infirm 
state of his health suffered a fresh shock ; his senses then seemed to 
be worn out, and his tongue, palsied as it -were, almost denied its 
office. With that natural flow of chearfulness which was so peculiar to 
him, he thus describes his situation in his own diary: — 44 LinNjEus 
« c limps, can hardly walk, speaks unintelligibly, and is scarce able to 
* 4 write.” — Even in this melancholy and painful state, nature still re- 
mained his only comfort and relief. He used to be carried to his 
museum, where he viewed the treasures which he had collected with 
ceeded soon after — Such was the general'assertion and inference of agreat number of persons, 
when this melancholy accident happened at Upsat . — A celebrated foreigner, who was there 
at that time, seems to question that the publication of the letters written to Haller should 
have had so fatal an influence upon the life of Linnjeus; — “ I do neither believe, nor have 
*« 1 observed,” says he, “ that Linnjeus felt any particular vexation at the printing of his 
“ letters to Haller.”— It would be much more pleasant to us to refute than confirm such 
a disagreeable incident. 
I 1 % 
SO 
