AND HONOURS PAID TO HIS MEMORY. 245 
days. With him died the most immortal man, whom his country ever 
yielded to the sciences. The year of his death was remarkable for the 
exit of several other great men. Voltaire and J. J. Rousseau 
died in that same year, and Haller terminated his bright career one 
month sooner than Linnaeus, on the 12th of December 1777. 
The death of Linnaus was an universal loss to the science of 
natural history — a loss to the University of Upsal, of which he had been 
the most celebrated professor for whole centuries, nay, since its very 
existence; — and, finally, a loss to the Swedish nation at large, which 
claimed him as her fellow-citizen. The mourning of the University 
was due to the great splendor which had fled with his spirit. His corpse 
was most solemnly removed to the cathedral of Ufisal, and there com- 
mitted to the tomb. All the professors, officers and students of the 
University followed his funeral; — and eighteen dotlors, formerly pupils 
of Li nnaius supported the pall. The Academy of Belles Lettres , 
History and Antiquities at Stockholm , which was institued in 1753 and 
renewed in 1786, offered a golden prize medal worth sixteen ducats, 
for the best panegyric on Linnaeus, either in verse or in prose, writ- 
ten in Latin, French or Italian. Already in 1786, a French specimen 
was sent in; but it afforded as little satisfaction as those which were 
delivered some time after. The Academy by command of the late 
King, offered a second golden prize-medal for the best Latin or 
Swedish inscription, to be engraved upon the monument which has 
since been erefted to Linnaeus, at the entrance of the new botanical 
garden* In the year 1784 a specimen appeared, but its composition 
did 
* The Author received the following letter on this subject, dated Upsal 1750 : « Rex nojter 
“ Augustissimus, proposito in Academia Regia Litterarum Humaniorum, Historiarum etAnti- 
3 “ quitatum 
