mical differtation, by the title of Ge-, by which he formed the greatest part `nera Morborum, and in 1763 as a feparate work. In his general divifion of difeafes he reduced them to eleven claffes, thirty-feven orders, and three hund red and twenty-five fpecies. He alfo gave lectures upen the various fpecies of difeafes (Species Morborum.) This plan, however, remain ed a manufcript, from which he dictated to his ftudents. The chief refult of his medical obfervations and lectures he published in 1766, under the title of Clavis Medicine Duplex, Exterior et Interior, Holm. twentynine pages in octavo. This work, fmall as it was, became a compendium of the whole fcience, and an epitomical sketch of the virtues and effects of medicines. "It was like an Ilias in Nuce," fays Dean Beck, but a nut fomewhat hard to be cracked to get at the kernel." Dixtetics as another most interesting and most useful branch of medicine, alfo occupied Linnæus. His travels had enabled him to make many experiments and obfervations upon that branch of medical study. "This fcience," wrote he to Baron Haller in 1744, "makes my delight; I have collected more in it than I know any other to have done. The whole courfe of his dietetic lectures lafted three years each time. He did not publish any general works upon this branch of phyfic. It was, however, enriched with a confiderable number of fine treatifes upon fingle fubjects; for inftance, fuch as on the utility of motion, on the diverfity of aliments, on bread, on the eatable plants of Sweden, on tea, coffee, chocolate, &c. &c. Thefe tracts were defended by his pupils, whom he furnished with the materials. He also made himfelf equally confpicuous in what is properly called medicine. This is a fummary view of the labours by which Linnaeus acquired his medical celebrity in Sweden, and of the young Swedish practitioners. We now return to his chief study, to natural history. One fingle reign of nature, was too confined a sphere for him to move in. With the fame fpirit and fuccefs he made conquests equally great in the animal reign. This reign was covered with ftill greater darkness, and remained a chaos of intricacy and confufion. Gefner, Aldrovandus, and Ray, had fpread over it fome small fireaks of a dawning light, but through Linnæus alone it first appeared as a ferene and refplendent day. His animal fyftem confifted only of a few pages in the beginning, but the twelfth and laft edition which appeared at Stockholm in 1767, at the expiration of thirty years after its first appearance, formed two large volumes. ar All the creatures of the animal reign, then known, were ranged in it with as much accuracy and precifion as the plants had been defcribed in his botanical works. Every animal with its characteristics, its fynonymous and trivial names, its country and principal qualities, could easily be found in it. He taught us to diftinguish the fpecies of the ferpents by the number of their fhields or fcales, the fishes by the position of their fins, and was the first who ranged in due order the infects, those dumb and deaf inftruments of nature, which collect in much larger numbers than any other living animals, and are in general only known by the mifchief which we accufe them of committing upon us. Linnæus alfo introduced a more convenient method of ordering the teftaceous animals. The. ftoneplants or corals were even before his time mixed with the zoophites, worms, and infects. Linnæus pointed out their distinctive marks, and all were thus put in their proper place. The merits of Linnæus in mineralogy were, doubtlefs, very fhining and eminent. He was the first who established the genera in that fcience, and precifely indicated their characteriftic figns. His mineral fyftem, which was the latest received in his code of nature, confifted at the laft edition, in 1760, of two hundred and thirty-fix octavo pages. The treafures of this reign of nature are divided by Linnæus into three different claffes; namely, into ftones (Petræ,) minerals (Mineræ,) and foffils (Foffilia,) the latter into various orders, and the whole into fifty-four. genera. Linnæus gave a fingular hypothefis refpecting the origin of ftones, which was peculiar to himfelf. In his opinion, water is the prima materia of the earth, and its fediment is clay. If fea water be mixed with rain-water, the faline particles of brine fettle at the bottom like fand. Rotten plants are changed into a black duft like earth; but all that belongs to the animal reign turns into chalk. Linneus affigns thefe as the four principal matters from which all the reft fpring, by cryftallization, folution, &c. &c. place. All animated beings were the fcience which he cultivated. The described on that mufter-roll in fuch different academies of Europe vied a manner that the lover of nature on with each other, which of them the frigid coaft of Greenland might thould first have the honour of electlearn to know by it even the fmalleft ing Linnæus one of their members. butterfly in the regions of India. He experienced alfo the flattering distinction which had never before been the lot of any Northern genius, to be received, in 1762, as an ordinary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, after he had been a correfponding member ever fince the year 1738. This, for a fo. reigner, was deemed a very particular mark of refpect by Barons Leibnitz, Haller, Van Swieten, and the great anatomift Morgagni at Padua. The Royal Society of London followed this example in the year 1763. In 1762 Linnæus alfo became a member of the British Economical Society, and in 1772 Honorary Member of the Phyfical College at Edinburgh. The Academy of Florence chofe him in 1759, that of Drontheim in 1766, that of Cell in 1767, that of Rotterdam in 1771, that of Sienna in the fame year, and that of Bern in 1772. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Patriotic Society in Sweden in 1775, and fhortly before his death also became a member of the Medical Society of Paris (Societé de Medecine,) which was first inftituted in the year 1776. The greatest academy in a diftant part of the world, that of Philadelphia, alfo brightened her records by the honour of his name, in 1770. Thus was he (comprising the other fcientific bodies mentioned before) member of twenty academies, namely, of three in Sweden, three in Germany, one in Switzerland, two in Holland, three in France, three in England, three in Italy, one in Denmark, and one in America. In the years 1767 and 1771, he published fupplements to his botanical defcriptions, and after the year 1774 gave accounts of fingle plants which had been fent to him by his pupils. Thefe were the last fruits of the activity of a man whofe whole life had been uninterrupted enthufiafm and merit. Meanwhile, his fame .fpread all over the world, nay farther, perhaps, than that of any learned man of our age ever reached. He was every where freely acknowledged and revered as the first man in From the river Neva to the Tagus in Europe, and in every other part of the world where Nature had friends, the works of Linnæus became the compafs of the study of na tural tural hiftory. When a great num ber of reforms were introduced in the year 1771 at the univerfity of Coimbra in Portugal, under the direction of the Marquis De Pombal, the royal ordinance iffued for that purpofe expressly stated, "That the works "of Linnæus fhould be the pattern "and basis of all botanical lectures, "because he was the best and great"eft author in that fcience." A fimilar change took place in the Spanish univerfities. Among the learned of his own country, he was a phenomenon of the first magnitude. No foreigner of quality, or of any literary eminence, paffed through Upfal, without withing to fee him. Strangers of all denominations gave him the moft flattering proofs of refpect. Lord Baltimore, whofe great fortune correfponded with his love of natural hif. tory, went from Stockholm to Upfal merely for the purpose of seeing Linnæus. He viewed the Linnæan collections, and after a few hours converfation with our luminary, conceived fo high an esteem for him as to prefent him with a gold fnuff box fet in diamonds. His Lordship's liberality and munificence did not stop here. On his travels through Germany he fent Linnæus a fervice of filver plate, or what the French call a neceffaire, worth 2000 rix-dollars, or upwards of three hundred pounds fterling. Such an act of munificence can only be the refult of the generous fublimity of mind which fo peculiarly characterifes the inhabitants of the British ifles. Linnæus alfo received many proofs of the liberality and attachment of the richer clafs of his foreign pupils. Among the latter, Meffrs Demedoros and Denidoffs, the fons of two moft respectable and wealthy Ruffian families, fignalized themselves in a peculiar manner. Owing to the univerfal love which Linnæus had gained, he even became the benefactor of his countrymen in our time. When the Swedish officers and foldiers, taken prifoners and difperfed over the Ruffian empire, in the late war, were exchanged in 1790, and at liberty to return to their country through St Petersburgh, they met with the greateft fupport and encouragement, efpecially on the part of Demidoff, who refided in that metropolis, and exerted himself by rendering every fervice to thofe unfortunate Swedish warri ́ors, whofe gallantry he esteemed, and of whofe country he still retained the most grateful remembrance. The falary which Linnæus enjoyed, the property which he had acquired by his marriage, and the prefents which were fent him by his pu pils and admirers, made him one of the richest and most monied among the profeffors and inhabitants of Upfal. His annual stipend amounted to feven hundred platens or florins. To these may be added one hundred tons of corn and about twenty tons more, which were the produce of a prebendary eftate; making altogether an annual income of about five hundred Swedish rix-dollars, fometimes more and fometimes lefs, according to the price of the corn. During the lat ter part of his life the late King allowed him a double falary. To thefe refources ought alfo to be joined the produce of his numerous writings, of which Laurence Salvius, a man of merit at Stockholm, was generally the editor, and by the care of the fame perfon the firft literary journal was introduced in Sweden in 1745, under the title of Larda Tidningar. Salvius paid Linnæus for each printed fheet of his original works only the fmall fum of one ducat. But if it be confidered, that on account of the fmall population in that vast kingdom, no great number of individuals are scientific readers, cur surprise at fo fcanty a fum paid for fuch original works as thofe of Linnæus, will certainly abate. The foreign book fellers. fellers chiefly found his works the moft profitable and moft advantage ous; and fome of them ftill reap be nefits from him, even after his death. Had Linnæus, as an author, received thofe fums which the publication of his works and their manifold editions yielded to the bookfellers of every country, thofe alone must have made him worth a capital fum., Sweden diftinguished the beginning of his reign as a lover of science. A committee was appointed, confifting of fix bishops, fix doctors in divinity, and eight other literati, charged with a better tranflation of the Bible into the Swedish language; and Linnæus was chofen a member of this com mittee, for the purpofe of afcertaining and defcribing the plants and other vegetable productions mentioned in the holy fcriptures. Linnæus gave even fo late as 1772, a fine proof of the lafting vigour of his genius, which encompaffed all nature; and at the fame time of that liveliness of fancy which heightened the charms of his ideas. When he refigned, on the 14th of December, his functions of Rector of the Univerfity, which he had thrice exercifed, be made an oration on the delights of nature, (Delicia Natura). He had compofed this oration in a fhort time, though overwhelmed with a variety of other important business. The whole academical forum found it fo beautiful, that the ftudents of all the Swedish provinces fent deputies to him on the next day, to intreat him to tranflate it into the Swedish tongue from the Latin. That rural amenity which always poffeffed the greatest charms in the eyes of the eminent men of all nations, and which may be looked upon as the juft reward of merit in the decline of life-the poffeffion of a villa-was also one of the first wifhes of him who occupied himself folely with nature. Soon did his profperous and flourishing circumftances gratify him with the accomplishment of this with; he purchased the villa of Hammarby, at the diftance of one league from Upfal. During the fif. teen laft years of his life he moftly chofe it for his fummer refidence. There he kept, comparatively speak. ing, a little univerfity. His pupils followed him thither, and those who were foreigners used to rent lodgings in the villages of Honby and Edeby, which were both contiguous to his villa. In 1769 he had a little edi- Though the enthufiaftic violence fice erected at the distance of a quar- with which Linnæus exerted himself, ter of a league from his rural abode, and the exceffive study of nature, upon an eminence, which command which made him forget all other coned the profpect of that whole diftrict. cerns, would often prove detrimenIn this place he kept his collection tal to his health,-yet the charms of of natural history, upon the contents nature as frequently helped to restore of which he delivered his lectures, it to its prifline vigour. When he He afterwards defined this country compleated his Philofophia Botanifeat as a dowry for his confort, who ca, in the fummer of 1751, and in came to inhabit it after his deceafe. the following year, he had a moft viHe purchased, at a fubfequent peri- olent fit of the gout, and was oblig od, another villa of less extent called ed to keep to his bed almost totally Soefja. derived of the ufe of his limbs. It So lively a genius as that of Linnæ- was at this period that his pupil us could never remain inactive. His Kalm returned from North-America zeal continued as long as nature left with a great number of new plants any vitals in his frame. Even in the and other natural curiofities. The year 1773 he took a share in an en- defire of feeing these treasures, and terprife by which the late King of the delight which he felt when he actually actually faw them, was fo great, as to make the gout fortunately difappear. The compofition of the fpecies Plantarum, the most excellent and most laborious of his works, occafioned alfo an illness, which ferved to accelerate his death. The conftant fi lence which attended his ftudies, brought on the ftone and the most excruciating pains in his right fide. When his pupil Roland returned from Surinam, he felt the livelieft fenfations of joy. Rolander had brought with him the Cochineal-tree (Coctus Cochenillifer,) on which were to be feen alive the infects from which the red colour used in dying scarlet is extracted. This joy was however foon changed into the deepeft fadnefs, owing to a mistaken carefulness. The tree had been removed to the botanical garden. Before the gardener bad received any instructions refpecting its management, he obferved the infects, which were creeping upon its leaves, and confidering them to be the deftruction of the leaves of the tree, he gathered them with great trouble and care, killed them, and thus annihilated the great and bright hopes which Linnæus had conceived of introducing cochineal as a natural production into Sweden. This accident caufed fo much derangement in his frame, as to be followed by a moft violent nervous head-ach. Nature again operated by her magic power upon his health, even when it was quite impaired and reduced in the year 1774. Lieut. Col. Dahlberg returned from Surinam, and brought with him one hundred and eighty-fix fpecies of curious plants, the production of that country, as a prefent for the King of Sweden. The King refolved to make a prefent of this valuable collection to the great naturalift of his empire, perfuaded that there was none to whom it would prove more interefting. Linnæus, penetrated with fenfations of gratitude, compofed a catalogue of thofe plants, which contained thirteen new genera, and upwards of forty new fpecies. Linnæus, the darling of nature, was not fo fortunate as Fontenelle, Haller, and Voltaire, in finding her propitious to him till his last moment. His great mind, the energy and powers of his faculties, funk into fuch a deep decline, that towards the laft ftage of his life, he was reduced to the helpless and feeble state of an infant. His fate was fimilar to, nay worse still than that of Franklin. The two laft years of his exiftence were, it might be faid, but a flow and obftinate ftruggle with death. While he gave lectures in the month of May 1774, in the botanical garden, he had an apoplectic ftroke, and fell into a fwoon from which he did not recover for a long time. This was the period at which his health declined entirely. In his younger days, he used to be afflicted with catarrhs and the tooth-ach, and his maturity with the moft violent meagrim; but he now began to complain of a pain in the lower part of his back and in his loins. In the year 1774 Mr Pennant, the celebrated Zoologist, wrote to him, to intreat him not to forget his promife of writing the natural hiftory of Lapland, which he had first made in the preface of his Flora Lapponica. The answer which Linnæus returned to Mr Pennant's request purported, "that it would now be too "late for him to begin." His public activity continued however to laft till 1776, when he had attained the 68th year of his age. Then the feeble and infirm state of his health suffered a fresh shock; his fenfes then feemed to be worn out, and his tongue, palfied as it were, almoft denied its office. With that natural flow of chearfulness which was fo peculiar to him, he thus defcribes his fituation in his own diary: "Linnæus limps, can hardly walk, "fpeaks unintelligibly, and is fcarce 66 able to write."Even in this melancholy |