VI 
ANECDOTES OF LINNiEUS. 
never degenerated into surly or offensive pride. He 
certainly did not care much for the opinion of his 
coteniporaries, and only heeded that which pro- 
ceeded from those who were men of genuine literary 
merit. His way of living was moderate and parsi- 
monious, his dress plain, and oftentimes even shabby. 
The high rank to which his King had raised him, 
pleased him only as far as he considered it as a 
proof of his scientific greatness. 
“ In the pursuits of his studies he could but ill 
brook contradiction and opposition. He corrected 
his works agreeable to the just remarks of his 
friends, whose hints he received with gratitude ; — 
but the attacks of his opponents he despised, and 
stead of answering, he consigned them to that 
obscurity and oblivion in which they have long ago 
been buried. Notwithstanding this, he could not 
easily forgive aggressions, and strained every nerve 
'to erase them from the annals of literature. He 
was liberal in dispensing praise, because he was 
fond of being flattered ; and this, indeed, may be 
considered as his greatest foible. At the same time, 
his ambition was founded upon the consciousness 
of his own greatness, and upon the merits which he 
acquired in a science, over which he had for so 
many years wielded the sceptre of sovereignty. 
Tournefort, as he often told me, was his pattern in 
his youth ; he did all he could to equal him, and 
found at last, that he had left Tournefort at a great 
distance beneath him. 
“ Linnaeus has been particularly charged with 
