44 
LINNAEUS 
twenty-six not previously recorded. That Celsius 
was particularly pleased with the result is shown by 
his suggesting to the Royal Society of Science the 
repayment to Linnaeus of the expenses incurred, which 
was done, the payment being actually in excess of the 
expenditure. 
It was after this specially pleasantly spent summer, 
when Carl’s thoughts were devoted to plants, that he 
began the duties of the autumn term. These seem 
principally to be the determining and describing of 
the summer’s harvest, collecting insects from among 
tree-mosses, with instructing to other students with 
good economic results. “ In November,” he wrote to 
Stobaeus, “ I gaye lectures in botany and had many 
noblemen and barons besides others among my 
audience. I received generally a ducat from each ” 
[nine shillings and twopence]. 
But added to this—and it was not the least 
important occupation—he studied diligently for his 
own advancement, with assiduous use of the books of 
the University, those of Celsius, and his own little 
store. It was not a thoughtless, uncritical storing in his 
memory of what he found in the old authors’ ponder¬ 
ous folios, and in the insignificant, long-forgotten 
pamphlets, but on the contrary he began to distinguish 
for himself the different characteristics, to sort his 
collections critically, to notice results thus obtained. 
The description which he in old days applied to 
himself that “ he wrote briefly and strongly all at 
which he laboured; regarding himself entirely as a 
born methodizer,” may even be applied to his earliest 
youthful writings. It was during that period, when 
he first began to write many of the works which he 
afterwards elaborated and amplified, formed the 
skeleton of the volumes which a few years later were 
issued in quick succession, and even made for the 
previously unknown young man from the far north, a 
great name in the annals of natural history. Who, 
reading through these first early attempts, can refrain 
