DEATH OF LINN ALUS, 
*44 
so much labour, and manifested a particular delight in examining the 
rarities and new productions, which during the latter part of his life 
had been brought him by M. Mutis from Carthagena and New Grt* 
nada, and by his other pupils from the Cape of Good Hope and Asia. 
In the winter of 177 6, his deplorable condition rose to the highest 
degree of wretchedness. He had another apopleQic stroke, which 
almost deadened his right side, in which he had most frequently felt 
the pains. His situation exhibited the most melancholy pifture of the 
decay of the human powers and greatness. His intellectual faculties 
wasted away like his body. The words which he uttered, He, who 
in the prime of life had been the most systematic genius of this age, 
were for the most part a chaos of confused and unconnected ideas* 
It now became necessary to lead, support, carry, dress and feed him 
by putting the viands into his mouth. His life began to prove an in- 
tolerable burthen. Having been a prey to such agonizing sufferings 
for upwards of a twelvemonth, and his illness having reached the cli- 
max of the most excruciating torture, occasioned by a fever and the 
stone, the Great Linnaus expired in a gentle slumber, in the after- 
noon, on the 10th of January 1778, after having led a life equally 
aCtive and meritorious, of seventy years, seven months, and seven 
* The following occurrence will farther serve to explain the miserable situation of Lin- 
njeus at the above mentioned epoch.-Those who are acquainted with the general customs of 
Germany and the rest of the Northern continent, well know, that every person of the better 
Class keeps a memorial -book, in which it is usual for every stranger or friend of respeftabi- 
lity to write down something to preserve his remembrance in the mind of the person who 
presents the book. On the 26th of September 1776, a foreign literatus laid before Lw- 
his memorial-book. The latter having set down his name in it, scribbled underneath 
the word Professor , in the following mixed Greek and Latin letters ; 
p j 0 <f A t J f 0 r. 
The Author Copied this from an authentic document. 
days. 
