IV ANECDOTES OF LINNiEUS. 
which he had but too little opportunity at Upsal. 
That science almost entirely engrossed his speech, 
and every thought of his mind ; and being the only 
naturalist then at that university, such a privation 
must have occasioned to him a great deal of irk- 
someness. 
“ When I got acquainted with Sir Charles Lin- 
n;eus, who was then in his fifty-sixth year, increasing 
age had already furrowed bis front with wrinkles. 
His countenance was open, almost constantly serene, 
and bore great resemblance to his portrait in the 
Species Plantarum. But his eyes, — of all the eyes 
I ever saw, — were tho most beautiful. They cer- 
tainly were but little, but darted a refulgent splen- 
dour and a penetration of aspect which I never 
observed before in any other man. It sometimes 
appeared to me, as if his looks would penetrate 
through the very innermost recesses of the heart. 
“ His mind w T as remarkably noble and elevated, 
though I well know that some persons accused him 
of several faults ; the acutoness and energy of his 
mental faculties, even shone through his eyes. But 
his greatest excellence consisted in the systematical 
order by which his thoughts succeeded each other. 
Whatever he said or did was faithful to order, to 
truth, and to regularity. In his youth his memory 
was uncommonly vigorous, but it began to sink 
early into decay. Even wdien I was with him, he 
could not sometimes remember the names of his 
dearest friends and relatives. I still recollect to 
have seen him once very much embarrassed, when, 
