ANECDOTES OF LINNjEUS. vii 
avarice. It cannot be denied, that his way of living, 
considering his good circumstances, was very mode- 
rate, and that he surely did not despise gold. But 
if I weigh in my mind, those extremes of poverty, 
which so long and so heavily overwhelmed him, I 
can easily account for this parsimony. But I could 
not say that his frugality ever degenerated into 
sordid avarice. I can even prove quite the con- 
trary by my own experience. After having given 
us lectures all the summer round, we were not only 
obliged to urge him to receive the fee due for these 
lectures, but even to leave the money slyly upon 
his chest, as he had signified his resolution not to 
take it, in a final and peremptory manner. 
“ He was not quite happy and comfortable in his 
own family. Ilis wife was tall, robust, domineer- 
ing, selfish, and destitute of every advantage of a 
good education. She frequently robbed us of the 
joys which gilded our social moments. Unable to 
hold any conversation in decent company, she con- 
sequently was never much fond of it herself. 
“ Under those disadvantages, the education of 
the children of Linnaeus could not but be of an in- 
ferior description. The young ladies, his daughters, 
are all good-tempered, but rough children of nature, 
and deprived of those external accomplishments 
which they might have derived from a better edu- 
cation. The younger Linnaeus, who succeeded his 
father in his professorship at Upsal, is certainly not 
endowed with the same vivacity ; but the great 
knowledge which he acquired by a constant practice 
