SO-CALLED INTRIGUES 
128 
possible that Rosen and Roberg did not quite consent 
to the new views in this science which Linnaeus 
advanced and afterwards partially abandoned. Thus, 
if one wished to prevent Linnaeus from giving private 
instruction, there was no necessity to invoke the aid 
of the Archbishop or of the Chancellor, but to use a 
simple application of the academic regulations. That 
Linnaeus, as reported, made some attempt to become 
a Docent, is also incredible, as his name as a university 
professor does not appear in the then existing statutes. 
Neither in the University transactions nor in Lin¬ 
naeus’s own notes does one find any hint of such a 
desire. 
If one might venture a guess how the quarrel 
between the two arose, it may be gathered from the 
following : 
When in May, 1734, Rosen should have begun his 
teaching in botany, he applied to Linnaeus, in whose 
assaying lectures he had taken part, with the request 
that he might study the principal contents of these 
botanic manuscripts, of which he had doubtless heard 
from Rudbeck, Roberg, O. Celsius and others. 
Linnaeus, who cannot be acquitted of a certain 
amount of suspicion, refused, and in consequence a 
dispute arose between these two young men of nearly 
equal age. Rosen may in this have pointed out upon 
what slender foundations rested Linnaeus’s right to 
teach, and that it would be easy to deprive him of this 
means of self-support. Startled by this, Linnaeus 
gave up one of his botanic manuscripts, but when he 
found that a copy had been made of it, he determined 
to lend no more, and to this he adhered, in spite of 
more or less eager attempts at persuasion from Rosen. 
That the latter took measures to put certain threaten- 
ings in train, after the warm contention, is not certain, 
and in any case they would have been in yain, as 
Linnaeus a short time after quitted Uppsala. 
That this quarrel left any bitterness with Rosen is 
nowhere stated, but it was otherwise with Linnaeus. He 
