SO-CALLED INTRIGUES 
127 
fixed, but difficulties arose. The consequences were, 
that an understanding was formed, that the degree of 
doctor of medicine should only be obtained abroad. 
At this time the Medical College at Stockholm 
suggested an alteration, asserting that many Swedes 
who received the doctor’s diploma abroad, went pre¬ 
ferentially to such universities. The college now 
therefore urged that the Swedish Universities should 
be empowered to grant degrees, after due examin¬ 
ation. Rosen had the slenderest share in this 
suggestion, as he was engaged in a lively conflict with 
the said college, which was decided, after examination 
by the King, in Rosen’s favour. 
The academic Consistory was blamed, as well as 
Rosen, for its action against Linnaeus when even his 
benefactors, Olof Celsius and Rudbeck, were thought 
in the end to have failed him and his just cause. The 
chief charges against it were, that the professors had 
met Rosen’s desire, to apply both old and new regu¬ 
lations, thereby rendering relief to his wounded 
vanity. In other words, the members of the academic 
Consistory were thought to have gladly seized the 
opportunity to rob Linnaeus of his right to teach, 
whereas they only vindicated the annoyance they felt 
at seeing their auditorium empty, while a young man, 
raised up and idolized by the academic youths, re¬ 
ceived their vociferous confidence and “ conducted 
them round Flora’s delightful flowery field as the 
interpreter of Nature, unmindful of interpreting 
Cicero and Demosthenes.” 
It may at once be pointed out, that not a single 
word in the slightest degree can give support to these 
accusations in any of Linnaeus’s notes, letters, or 
printed writings; they are exclusively the unrestrained 
fantasy of the author here cited. Thoughtless repe¬ 
titions have not been wanting, but even these, on 
reflection, should have been discarded, when they 
wrote such statements as “ The fathers in Uppsala 
were at one to drive Linnaeus from the University,” 
