jroiir Cto/V, which you will receive with tnfo 
letter. 
Probably you may have fome curiofity to 
know who this celebrated Linnaeus was; 
this inventor of the new fyftem you are 
about to ftudy. I will therefore give you a 
Iketch of his life. 
Charles Linnaeus was the fon of a Swe- 
difh Divine, and born in the year 1707, at 
Rcefhult in the province of Smoland. He 
was, in his infancy, fo attentive to the 
knowledge of plants, and confequently fo 
negligent of his other frudies, that his father 
determined to take him from fchool and to 
bind him apprentice to a (hoe-maker. How- 
ever, in 1717, he was fent to the Univerfity 
of Lund, and in 1728 removed to Upfala, 
where he perfevered in his favourite fludy 
of Natural Hiftory, under the fevere oppre 
fion of abfolute poverty, until his fingular 
abilities and application gained him the pa- 
tronage of Olaus Celfius, profeflbr of Divi- 
nity, and Olaus Rudbeck, profeflbr of Me- 
dicine and Botany. 
In 1731, he was fent on a botanical ex- 
pedition into Lapland, and received, from 
the Royal Society of Upfala, the fum of 
eight 
