VISIT TO ENGLAND 
167 
until he had bidden good-bye to Holland, and reached 
Brabant, when his body in one day felt renewed, and 
free from a heavy burden.” 
If we cast a glance backward on what Linnaeus 
effected during his stay in Holland, we cannot fail to 
be struck with astonishment; no similar case can be 
furnished in the history of botany, nor in the annals of 
any other science. During the short time of two and 
a half years, there were published, besides smaller 
treatises, no fewer than twelve or fourteen works for 
the development of botany, the majority being epoch- 
making. It is true that many of them were already 
prepared during his student years, but they had to 
undergo a thorough revision and reworking in the light 
of greater library help which was available in Holland; 
and others, especially that gigantic work, “ Hortus 
Cliffortianus,” had to be finished and printed in the 
midst of other and time-consuming duties. All these 
testify to a power of work and untiring industry, which 
must awaken unstinted wonder. It is therefore from 
no boastful self-love, but with justifiable self-conscious¬ 
ness that he gave expression, not for the general public, 
but for his intimate friends and in his autobiographies, 
when he truthfully says: “ One may judge of the 
amount of work that I accomplished in Holland: where 
I wrote more, discovered more, and reformed more in 
botany than anyone had done before in his whole 
lifetime ”; and in another place—“ He who sees what 
botany was before my time, and what it now is, since 
I began to write, would hardly recognize it; I have 
changed all and have been the greatest reformer in 
that science that ever existed.” 
But even with his genius power for work and 
perseverance such as Linnaeus displayed, it would not 
have been possible to accomplish so much without 
fortunate circumstances. It has been shown how he 
was helped by the quiet of Hartecamp, with every 
requisite scientific assistance at hand, and relieved of 
all economic worries, in order to work exclusively upon 
