excursions in the summer, at the head of two hundred pupils, besides many foreigners and persons of distinction. They set out in small parties to explore the country; and whenever any rare plant or natural curiosity was discovered, a signal was given with a horn or trumpet, when the whole corps joined their chief, to hear his demonstrations and remarks. They used to return with their hats adorned with flowers, and the sound of musical instruments. The inhabitants were always pleased to see them come back in this style of innocent triumph; and to such delightful rambles, many of the young men were indebted at once for increasing their intellectual stores, and preserving them from the degrading and debasing haunts of dissipation and folly. At that time all the young students of divinity were obliged to learn the elements of botany and domestic medicine, in order that they might be enabled to administer to the bodily afflictions of their flocks, in remote districts, where regular medical assistance might not be attainable in a moment of emergency; and the number of Linnæus' pupils and admirers was greatly increased in consequence of this wise and humane regulation."

The mind of Linnæus was not, however, to be confined even to the varied productions of his garden. Under him the first Royal Museums were established in Sweden; both the king and queen being devoted to the sciences in general, though above all to natural history. The king, therefore, caused every remarkable curiosity in the kingdom to be shewn to Linnæus, in order that he might describe it from his own observation. Still the garden occupied him

chiefly, and as a specimen of the ardour with which he pursued his studies, though in a declining state of health, I may mention the following:

"The seed of the Lotus Ornithopodioides had been sent to him by Professor De Sauvages from Montpelier. It prospered and bore two flowers. Delighted with them, he recommended them to the strictest care of the gardener; and two days after, returning home late in the evening, he immediately went into the garden to look at them, but they were not to be found. The next night he went again: they were still invisible. The next morning they appeared as usual; but the gardener thought they were fresh ones, as there was not any to be found the evening before. Linnæus pondered over the circumstance, and went again the same evening, intent on solving the mystery: they had again vanished; but, searching more closely for the fugitives than he had hitherto done, he at last found them closely folded up, and their leaves contracted over them. To a mind inquisitive as that of Linnæus's, this discovery was enough to awaken a new train of ideas. Intent on surprising Nature in her most secret operations, he might now be seen perambulating the garden, and the hot-houses, in the dead of the night, with a lantern in his hand; and constantly finding the vegetable creation in a dormant state, their flowers concealed, and their leaves contracted round them, he formed his theory of the sleep of plants, and proved that it took place at regular intervals, like that of animals. This discovery enabled him likewise to form a vegetable time-piece, wherein the hours of the day were marked by the different periods at which certain flowers began to close their blossoms; and in the same manner he framed a rural calendar for the regulation of the labours of husbandry, according to the appearance of the blossom of plants at stated intervals.

6

"Such were the ingenious occupations with which Linnæus versified his more assiduous studies, while the garden, and its varied productions, engaged the strength of his mind. There,' he said in a speech which he delivered from the professor's chair, on the anniversary of the King of Sweden's birth-day, in 1752; there I receive and impart instruction! There I admire the wisdom of the Creator, which manifests itself in so many various modes; and there I demonstrate it to others."

The greatness of this mind will, however, not be understood, except it be observed when struggling for exertion under the pressure of poverty. At one period, 66 too honest to avail himself to any considerable degree of credit, which he might not be able to redeem, and too just to ask that farther assistance from his Father which he knew must injure the younger branches of his family, Linnæus submitted to the greatest privations with cheerfulness. His countrymen and fellowstudents, admiring his genius and respecting his fortitude, frequently ministered to his wants, which were so urgent, that he was forced, not only often to accept a meal from their kindness, but was glad to reIcruit his wardrobe with their cast-off clothes. He could not even afford to pay a cobbler for mending the old shoes which he was constrained to accept of his companions, or to go barefooted on the excursions where, amidst the treasures and delights of nature, all recollections of his own difficulties and anxieties vanished like a painful dream. To have seen him lining his worn-out shoes, as he frequently did, with strong paper, and stitching the soles afresh, with thread formed of the bark of trees, it would have appeared as if he actually must have taken up the humble occupation for which his Father had once designed him, that of a shoemaker; but the mind that can bear, without complaint, the hardships of poverty, almost invariably extricates itself at last from its disadvantages." So Linnæus lived to offer up his solemn thanks to God, in the Installationspeech which he made in 1741, when entering on his office of professor, for the sustaining mercy which had

enabled him to bear up under the most trying circumstances of want and disappointment.

These few particulars, illustrative of the character and attainments of this extraordinary man, have been introduced, only with the view of directing the reader's attention to the rise and origin of so much eminence in the delightful walk of Nature.

Charles Linnæus was born on the 13th of May, 1707, at Rashult, a village in the province of Smaland, in Sweden. "His ancestors were peasants; but, by gradual refinement in their ideas, being induced to leave the plough, they relinquished their original name with their primitive occupation; and, in conformity with a pleasing custom in Sweden, of choosing fresh appellations, on any particular occasion, from natural objects, took the name of Lindelius, Tiliander (Linden-tree-man), from a lofty Lindentree, which stood, and continued to flourish, till within a few years, in the vicinity of their native place. The Father of Charles Linnæus was the pastor of the village; and, being passionately fond of gardening, he followed the example of his kindred, in borrowing from the same tree a name, which his son has rendered familiar to the ear in every quarter of the civilized globe. The love of plants and flowers in the elder Linnæus was increased by his obtaining, about a year after the birth of his son, the living of Stenbrohult, which had the advantage of an extensive and good garden annexed to the house. This garden he soon rendered the finest in the whole district, enriching it with upwards of four hundred species of flowers, many of them of foreign growth and great

rarity. Thus were the infant steps of

næus guided by his father's hand, amid

"Queen lilies, and the painted populace,

young Lin

Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives."

At eight years of age, he had a separate plot of ground assigned him by his Father, which was dignified with the name of "Charles's garden;" and many an excursion did he make to the neighbouring woods and meadows, for plants and flowers, wild herbs and weeds, wherewith to increase its stores. He even colonised it with wild bees and wasps; but their hostile demeanour, threatening the safety of the paternal hives, and his poor weeds verifying the old proverb of thriving apace, he was forced occasionally to submit his little domain to the more discriminating eye and experienced hand of his Father.

The allotment of a piece of garden-ground to Charles was, however, rather an advanced step in the influence which his Father's love for nature had exercised over him. Before he was well out of his Mother's arms, this influence was observable; but the bent of his mind was first decidedly displayed on the following occasion. "He was scarcely four years of age, when he accompanied his Father one day to a feast at Mohlen; and, in the evening, it being a very pleasant season of the year, the guests seated themselves on some flowery turf, listening to the pastor, who made various remarks on the names and properties of the plants, shewing them the roots of the Succisa, Tormentilla, Orchides, &c. The child paid the most uninterrupted attention to all he saw and heard, and from that hour never ceased harassing