294 
THE LIFE OF THE YOUNGER LINN^US. 
and shook off those ties which had so long warped his faculties. From 
this moment, he continued to show himself the most zealous lover and 
promoter of his science. 
In the beginning of the year 1778 ensued the death, which was so 
heavy a loss to the sciences and to the Universities of Upsal, and a loss 
*till heavier to him as a son. He was so fortunate as to inherit an illu- 
strious name; but how arduous was the task of preserving the lustre 
of that name, and of compensating as much as possible for the loss of 
him, whose successor he had been appointed fifteen years before. 
Meanwhile he entered, with revived courage and energy, the career 
assigned to him, and accumulated both honour and merit in his functions 
as a professor. The>phere left^for his aftivity to exert itself in, was 
equally vast and important. The arrangement of the manuscript col- 
lections of his father, and the superintending of the new editions of 
several of his works, required both great industry and attention. 
A paternal manuscript became the first among the collection, which 
he was induced, agreeable to the wish formerly expressed by his father, 
to communicate to the learned world. This was the Supplement to 
his System of the Vegetable Reicn: Supplcmentum Plantarum 
Systematis Vegetabilium. Brunswig , 1781, in ottavo. — Several erroneous 
reports have been circulated respecting the publication of this supple- 
ment. We, therefore communicate here the following authentic ac- 
count, in the words of the celebrated man, to whose care its publica- 
tion had been entrusted. 
« About three months before my departure from Sweden,” says the 
great botanist, Ehrhart, in a letter to the author, « in 17763 the vene- 
£t rable Linnaeus asked me, if I chose to take the SupplementuwiPlan- 
1 . “ tarum 
