52 
MEMOIR OF LINN.EUS. 
dale and Drottingholm, at easy distance from his own 
villa, were often the scene of his studies, and served 
as another recreation from the more severe duties of 
his professorship. 
It was at this period of his life that he was seized 
with severe attacks of gout, which prevented his re- 
pose for many nights at a time, and which he relieved 
by eating wfild strawberries ; these were almost the 
first symptoms of an approaching decay in his vigor- 
ous constitution. The excitement of seeing a collec- 
tion of novelties had a singular effect, and an anecdote 
is preserved, of his being cured in this way of a severe 
fit, by the return of a pupil from North America. 
He was afflicted with a violent fit of the gout, and 
was obliged to keep his bed almost totally deprived 
of the use of his limbs. When he heard of the return 
of Kalm, with a number of new plants and other 
curiosities, the desire of seeing these treasures, and 
the delight which he felt -when he saw them, was so 
great as actually to make the gout disappear. 
The family of Linmeus, consisting of only one son 
and four daughters, was now grown up. The son, 
his first-born, of whom so much was expected, in- 
herited a portion of his father’s abilities, but was not 
spared to bring them to that maturity, which a con- 
stant study for many years might have enabled him 
to reach. At the early age of ten, he is said to have 
been acquainted with most of the plants in the botanic 
garden, and the highest wishes of his father were, to 
