380 
LINNAEUS 
A woman was carried round to all houses as sick and 
poor, but could tell fortunes. She said that the house [at 
Stenbrohult] stood in danger of destruction by fire. My 
mother was alarmed; she [the soothsayer] said pray God to 
postpone it in your time. The house was burned after her 
death. My brother Samuel, brisk, was at Wexio school; I 
was newly come to Lund. Everybody called my brother 
Professor, and said he would become a Professor. She, 
who had seen neither of us, asked to see some of our 
clothes, and said of brother Samuel that he would be 
priest; of me, he would be professor, travel far, be more 
famous than anyone in the kingdom, and swore thereto. 
My mother to deceive her, showed another coat, saying 
it was my brother’s. “ No, that is his which will be 
professor and live far away.” 
My father saw one night as it were a human form in a 
sheet sitting by the fireplace; talked about it to everybody. 
Two days after came the dancing master, Sobrant, who 
sickened the next day and died. 
A week before my wife was confined of our daughter 
Helena [Sara Magdalena], the neighbours saw at night, 
lights in all our windows, as if illuminated; they talked about 
it to everybody My wife got to know about it, and feared 
that it portended she should die in childbed; but she came 
through. The girl died soon after her birth. 
1765 at midnight between 22nd and 23rd July, my wife 
heard [somebody] outside our bedroom; it went into the 
upper chamber, my museum. Something went heavily to 
and fro. Wakened me, and I heard it also. I knew that 
nobody was there, the doors were locked, and the keys with 
me. After a few days I learned that my special friend and 
trusty commissary, Carl Clerck, died the 22nd July at nine 
at night, and really the walk was so like his, that if I had 
heard it at Stockholm, I should have known him by his 
walk, but I was then at Hammarby, six miles from 
Stockholm [really about thirty-six English miles]. 
When Lofling before starting for Spain, came to take 
leave of me, he stumbled [on the threshold] came not back. 
Forskal likewise. 
[A long account of Alexander Blackwell, a native of 
Aberdeen, will be found translated in the “ Journal of 
Botany,” xlviii. (1910) pp. 193-195.] 
