28 
LINNAEUS 
history, especially botany, cooled considerably. On 
the other hand, his liking for another science blazed 
up, to which he had already felt himself drawn, namely 
philology. 
When he began to issue his colossal report on the 
Lapland journey, he only included the small portion 
as far as the Dal-Elf river, in the first and only volume 
which appeared, since the mention of the ferryman at 
that place led him to the most daring and unrestrained 
philological and geographical diversions concerning 
“ that cruel and fierce Karen [Charon].” After the 
Uppsala fire he devoted himself to his “ Thesaurus 
linguarum Asise et Europse harmonious,” a work 
“ surpassing the ‘ Atlantica ’ in extent, genius and 
boldness,” to quote the words of the elder Fries. In 
order to work upon it undisturbed, in 1721 he 
requested to have a period of release from lecturing. 
The Consistory urged amongst other things, that “ as 
Dr. Rudbeck’s late father, during his lifetime, had 
published a learned and laudable work to the entire 
nation’s lustre and honour, of which the four volumes 
were lost in the fire, and now after his death were 
appreciated in foreign lands, especially in Denmark, 
some have already begun to censure and refute the 
same. Both father and son, in the Swedish trans¬ 
actions, possessed profound science, and as it may be 
possible to replace in part what in the forementioned 
work was lost, and partly to vindicate it, therefore 
his wish should be supported.” To this the king 
replied that Professor Rudbeck, “ in recognition of 
his long professorial career of thirty-one years, also 
in order to complete the work in hand, may dispense 
with his public lectures for a giyen period.” 
This was respect as well as solicitude for the elder 
Rudbeck’s “ Atlantica,” but the continued research 
in his usual style which he practised in the medical 
instruction in the University was thrust on one side. 
The execution of Rudbeck’s remitted lectures 
devolved on his son-in-law, Dr. Petrus Martin, who, 
