Linné now proceeded with renewed spirit and confidence in his great plan of botanical reform, and he gave to the world his first edition of the Genera Plantarum in the beginning of 1737In this, the fexual fyftem was difplayed in its complete ftate; and he arranged, according to the fame method, the Hortus Cliffortianus and the Flora Lapponica, which both appeared in that year. The reputation which he gained by thefe works did not prevent his becoming a prey to melancholy; the true caufe of which was a longing after his own country, and for the fight of his intended bride. Having refided a while with Van Royen in Leyden, whom he aided in forming a new fyftem of botany, he vifited Paris, where he met with a polite reception, and was admitted a correfponding member of the Academy of Sciences. France, however, was not yet prepared for exchanging the fyftem of her own Tournefort and Vaillant, for that of the Swede. From this country he took his departure by sea for Sweden, where he arrived in September 1738.

The narration is here fufpended, in order to give, in the 6th fection, a fummary of Linné's literary contests and opponents. The great Haller, his fuperior in general knowlege, but his inferior in originality and the spirit of fyftem, is placed firft on the lift; yet it was only in occafional criticisms and reviews of the works of Linné that Haller publicly appeared as his opponent; and he was more habitually his friend, correfpondent, and admirer. Their friendship, however, was interrupted, and at length terminated, by jealoufies and bickerings; in which the pride and petulance of Linné feem fully as much to blame as the more ftately felf-confequence of Haller. Profeffor Heister was a more bitter and much less refpectable antagonist; and he fpirited up one of his pupils, Siegefbeck, to fall on Linné in a manner that only expofed his own ignorance and prefumption. It was a temporary triumph for Heifter, that, after unsuccessfully attacking the fexual fyftem, he could adduce a small publication of John Henry Burkhard, a German phyfician, dated 1702, in which a hint is given of the poffibility of forming an arrangement of plants according to the differences of their parts of generation:-but Linné could prove that he never faw this obfcure performance; and if he bad, it could have detracted little from his merit, that another had flightly fuggefted a plan which he had brought to execution. Many refpectable names, however, appear as opponents of the new fyftem; among whom may be mentioned Klein, Crantz, Alfton, Camper, Pontedera, Spalanzani, Adanson, and the illuftrious de Buffon. In his own country, Linné had a declared and acrimonious adverfary in the great mineralogift

Wallerius,

Wallerius. In order to refute the afperfions of this philofopher, Linné printed a small anonymous work entitled Orbis eruditi judicium de Car. Linnai M. D. fcriptis, in which he drew a fketch of his life and writings, and published all the teftimonies in his favour given by men of eminence, in various parts of Europe, the fubftance of which is tranfcribed in the prefent work. This was a dignified, though perhaps an oftentatious, mode of filencing attacks; more to his honour, however, than the method which he is here faid to have taken in order to mark his fenfe of gratitude and of refentment toward foreign botanists which was, by affixing the names of his friends on beautiful and valuable plants, and thofe of his enemies on the ugly and noxious. Here was a difplay of that littleness of mind which mixed itfelf with his great qualities; and the temptation, thus to abuse the affumed botanical privilege of naming new plants after persons, juftifies, in our opinion, Haller's objections against that common practice.

Sect. 8. returns to the hero of the work, now at Stockholm. His botanical honours had not done much in preparing the way to medical practice; and his profpects were at first fo little encouraging, that, had a letter from Haller come to hand in reasonable time, in which that eminent perfon propofed in the most friendly manner to refign to him his own profefforship of botany at Gottingen, Sweden would probably have loft the honour and advantage of Linné's future refidence. Some fortunate cafes, however, brought him into notice; and a lucky prescription for a cough became fo fashionable, as to give him an introduction at court. Count Teffin declared himself the patron of Linné, and obtained for him the poft of phyfician to the Admiralty; this fuccefs alfo gained him the hand of his bride, after a probation of five years.

The death of Olaus Rudbeck, at Upfal, made a vacancy in the botanical chair at that univerfity, and Linné's great wish was to fucceed to this poft. His first application was unfuccefsful, and Rosen his old antagonist was the perfon elected. This disappointment was foftened by the choice which the Swedish diet made of Linné to take a tour, accompanied by fubordinate naturalifts, through fome of the leaft known provinces of the kingdom, in order to promote ufeful knowlege and improvement, On his return from this agreeable and reputable miffion, another profefforfhip at Upfal, that of phyfic and anatomy, became vacant; and it being conferred on him, he removed thither, with his family, in September 1741, and affumed his public functions. Soon afterward, Rofen and he, reflecting that they were each in the wrong place, made an amicable exchange of profefforfhips, with univerfal confent; and, from

B 4

the

the beginning of 1742, Linné occupied that ftation, which he rendered fo honourable to himself, and fo ufeful to the uni-` verfity. His first care was to re-establish and improve the botanical garden, which had fallen into lamentable decay. He was in fact the new creator of it, and by his intereft and affiduity it became one of the moft celebrated of the public repofitories of plants. Since his death, however, it has been much improved, and a particular account of its antient and present ftate is given in the text and notes of this work. A cabinet of natural curiofities was likewife formed at Upfal by the influence of Linné, aided by the patriotic munificence of Count Gyllemborg, Chancellor of the university.

Linné was now thoroughly engaged in his academical functions. Befides botany, he lectured on natural history in general, the Materia Medica, dietetics, and the distinction of difeafes; and ftudents flocked to hear him. He was employed in two more exploratory tours in his own country; to West Gothland in 1746, and to Schonen in 1749; and he published a complete Flora and Fauna of Sweden. Honours, both foreign and domeftic, accumulated on him; of which one of the moft fingular and flattering was that of having a medal ftruck with his effigy, at the expence of four Swedish nobles. He obtained the title of Archiater (Dean of the College of Phyficians); and thus his father, who had deftined him for a fhoe-maker, faw this fon raised to honours and dignities, famous throughout Europe, and in poffeffion of an immortal name !

The 8th fection is devoted to a brief history of those pupils of Linné, who travelled into foreign climates in order to extend the sphere of natural knowlege. No circumstance, perhaps, in the life of this eminent perfon, is fo truly honourable to him as his having been the founder of fuch a fchool of able and enterprifing men; whofe zeal for their favourite pursuits carried them through dangers and difficulties into the moft remote parts of the globe, to the infinite emolument of science. To feveral of them, this zeal proved fatal. This commemoration of their labours is interefting: but we fhall not break in on the hiftory of the mafter by any extracts from it.

The events of Linné's life, from 1750 to 1760, are related in the next fection. He arranged and defcribed the cabinet of Count Teffin, and various royal mufeums. He made an important difcovery refpecting the tænia, proving that it partakes of the nature of the polype, and that each joint is a feparate animal. He found out (as this biographer roundly afferts,) the art of making pearls: but, though it is certain that he imagined he had made this difcovery, and that great public expectations were raised

from

from it, yet it does not, appear that his project ever was brought to practice. Various new obfervations refpecting the phyfiology of plants refulted from his farther inquiries; particularly that plants undergo a nocturnal change analogous to fleep in animals.

In 1751, he published a view of his whole fyftem, together with thofe of the principal botanifts who preceded him, in a work entitled Philofophia Botanica, which difplayed his ingenuity and talent for method and arrangement in the most ftriking manner.

His capital work, the Species Plantarum, first appeared in 1753, and exhibited such a catalogue of vegetables as the world had not before seen. Befides the vaft number of new fpecies from all quarters of the globe, which it contained, it presented his most useful invention of trivial names, by which the language of botany obtained an unspeakable advantage in point of facility and diftinétnefs. His reputation was daily more and more extended through foreign countries, bringing him continual acceffions of curiofities for the botanical garden and mufeum, and procuring to him the most honourable invitations from the diftant capitals of Madrid and Petersburgh; both which he declined in favour of his native land. Indeed he had reason to be satisfied with the refpect paid to him at home; for the new order of the Polar Star was conferred on him in 1753; and in 1757 he received a patent by which he was raised to the rank of the hereditary nobility of the kingdom.

Section 10 gives the occurrences of the life of Linné, from 1760 to his death. It begins with a difcuffion of his merits with respect to the medical fcience, in which his principal productions were his Materia Medica, his Genera Morborum, and his Clavis Medicina. The biographer attempts to place him as highly as poffible among the improvers of medicine, and is very angry as the cenfures which have been paffed on his efforts in this study, particularly by M. Vicq d'Azyr; yet, we believe, it is pretty generally allowed that his aphoriftical and figurative ftyle, and his minutenefs and multiplicity of distinction, were ill calculated to afford inftruction in a practical science.

The fervices which Linné rendered to zoology and mineralogy are next briefly enumerated. They were certainly confiderable, though he was much less a legiflator in those branches of natural hiftory than in botany. In mineralogy, particularly, the aid of chemistry has produced difcoveries which have thrown the Linnéan claffification far behind. The Jaft labours of Linné in botany were the fupplements published in 1767 and 1771, and the accounts of fingle plants tranfmitted to him after 1774 During the whole courfe of this latter period

of

of his life, he was receiving numerous teftimonies of respect from learned and academical bodies, which now acquired more honour than they could confer, by the affociation of fuch a name to their lifts of members. In 1763 he had the fatisfaction of obtaining the appointment of his fon as affiftant to him in the botanical chair, with the promife of his fucceeding to it when it fhould become vacant. His wife's fortune, and the emoluments of his profefforfhip, made him comparatively a rich man ; and he was enabled to indulge himself in the purchafe of a villa near Upfal, which became his ufual fummer retreat during the last fifteen years of his life. His correfpondences were greater than any other learned man of the North; and a lift of 150 persons, of various countries, is here given, with whom he held an epiftolary commerce. The biographer laments that the enviable circumftances of his life did not accompany him to the laft fcene. His mind and body both lingered under a gradual decline. In 1774 the first fhock was given by an apoplectic ftroke; from which, however, he recovered fo far as to resume his public functions. A renewal of it in 1776 irreparably ruined the fabric, and reduced him to a ftate of abfolute childhood, attended with fevere fufferings; from which he was releafed by an eafy death on Jan. 10th, 1778, in the 71ft year of his age.

Having thus extracted, from the prefent work, fuch an abftract of the life of this great man as we think will afford agreeable information to our readers, we fhall finish the article by a fummary account of the remaining contents of the volume.

The honours paid to the memory of Linné fucceed to the narrative of his death; and they comprise accounts of the inftitution of the Paris and London Linnéan focieties. A defcription of his perfon and character follows; the latter, perhaps, too panegyrical to be very inftructive. Various anecdotes concerning him are given from different writers; among which those related by his pupil, Profeffor Fabricius of Kiel, appear to us the moft entertaining and characteristical. They conclude with a general view of his peculiar merits in natural history: but we think that nothing in this book affords fo diftinct an idea of what he performed in this refpect, as the work on that subject of the learned Dr. Pulteney *.

Some biographical particulars of Charles Linné, jun. form a feparate chapter. He was a person whose name would probably never have been heard, had he not been the fon of the great Linné. He arrived, by dint of habit and application, to fome eminence in natural history: but he purfued his ftudies

See Rev. N. S. vol. iv. p. 361.

merely