64 
MEMOIR OF LINNAEUS. 
rades, or obliged to patch with hark or coarse paper 
those shoes which he had solicited from some of his 
companions, we are reminded of many similar exam- 
ples in our own country : — of the orientalist, Mur- 
ray, who learned his alphabet from letters rudely 
drawn with a burnt heather twig on the back of a 
wool card — of Leyden, who read the book he had 
borrowed by the borrowed light of a blacksmith’s 
forge ; and of Adams, who attended the College of 
Edinburgh when he was often too poor to purchase 
a dinner, and used to consume his penny roll during 
a solitary walk round the Meadows, or, if the day 
was wet, in climbing the high flights of common 
stairs that led from the Parliament Square to the 
Cowgate. Of these scholastic miseries Linmeus 
had his share; but they abated nothing from the 
ardour of his studies, and in the pages of Toume- 
fort he found consolation for all the difficulties and 
discouragements he experienced in the gymnasium 
of Wexio. 
His reputation was European, long before fortune 
deigned to smile on his labours. Often he used to 
apply to himself, as a motto, the words of the Latin 
poet, Laudatur at alget , “ He is praised, and starves.” 
But, in spite of his necessities, the consciousness 
of his intellectual superiority inspired him with all 
the pride of independence; while the charities con- 
ferred upon him, instead of lessening his dignity, 
reflected honour both on him who received and on 
those who bestowed them It -was the wants of 
