HIS BENEFACTORS 
285 
the occasions on which Linne visited him at Akero, 
when the two veterans, each esteeming the other, 
wandered round the castle's beautiful neighbourhood, 
or busied themselves in the mineral cabinet, adorned 
with Linne’s portrait. 
During the thirty or more years that Linne and 
Tessin were thus united, the latter’s condition had 
undergone a change. After being the absolute ruling 
chief of the “ Hats,” and one of the most powerful 
men in the realm, he had been induced, partly from 
choice, partly from necessity, to withdraw entirely 
from public life. Many who previously bowed before 
him afterwards regarded him with indifference or 
contempt, but Linne was not one of these. He 
deeply regretted his benefactor’s adversity, and with 
inward respect he still reverenced his personal great¬ 
ness. In a New Year’s letter in 1762, shortly after 
Tessin’s fall, Linne wrote: “After twenty years 
sailing on a raging sea, envy awakened tempests, but 
he happily came with ship and cargo into a quiet 
haven,” and “ The Children of Israel, who every year 
celebrated the day when God’s Almighty arm by the 
hand of Moses, delivered them from Egyptian bond¬ 
age, have taught me every year to celebrate the day 
in 1738, when the grace of God raised me, through 
your Excellency, from my congenital poverty to an 
advantageous position, in which I can provide for and 
shelter myself and mine. You are deserving, there¬ 
fore, my praise, honour and gratitude, which my 
children will continue after me, so long as they are 
upon this earth.” In 1770, he similarly gave ex¬ 
pression to his feelings of enduring thankfulness to 
the author of his advancement. The last letter 
reached Tessin on his death-bed, and a week later he 
quietly passed away, aged seventy-five. 
The Count had always owned that he was no 
botanist, but his Countess, Lovisa Ulrika Tessin, was 
an admirer of that science, which fact Linne learned 
at the end of 1752, through Back. It was at her 
