or LINNÉ, Sir CHARLES, a celebrated botanist and natural historian, was born on the 24th of May 1707, in a village called Roesshult, in Smaland, where his father, Nicholas Linné or Linnæus, was then vicar, but afterwards preferred to the curacy of Stenbrohult. It is said, that on the farm where Linnæus was born there yet stands a large lime tree, from which his ancestors took the surnames of Tildander, Lindelius, and Linnæus.

It seems probable that Linnæus' taste for the study of nature was formed from the example of his father, who, as he has himself informed us, cultivated, as his first amusement, a garden plentifully stored with plants. Young Linnæus soon became acquainted with these, as well as with the indigenous plants of his neighbourhood. Yet, from the smallness of his father's income, the young naturalist was on the point of being destined to a mechanical employment; fortunately, however, this design was overruled. In 1717 he was sent to school at Wexio, where, as his opportunities were enlarged, his progress in all his favourite pursuits was proportionally extended. At this early period he paid attention to other branches of natural history, particularly to the study of entomology.

The first part of his academical education Linnæus received at Lund, in Sweden, under Professor Stobanus, who favoured his inclination for the study of natural history. After a residence of about a year, he removed in 1728 to Upsala. Here he soon contracted a close friendship with Arvedi, a native of the province of Angermania, who had already been four years a student in that university, and, like himself, had a strong bent to the study of natural history in general, but particularly to that of ichthyology. Soon after his residence at Upsala, our author was likewise fortunate enough to obtain the favour of several gentlemen of established character in literature. He was in a particular manner encouraged in the pursuit of his studies by the patronage of Dr. Olaus Celsius, at that time professor of divinity, and the restorer of natural history in Sweden; who, being struck with the diligence of Linnæus in describing the plants of the garden at Upsala, and his extensive knowledge of their names, not only patronized him in a general way, but admitted him to his house, his table, and his library. After a residence of only two years at Upsala, he was thought sufficiently qualified to give lectures occasionally from the botanic chair, in the room of Professor Rudbeck.

In the year 1731, the Royal Academy of Sciences at Upsala, having for some time meditated the design of improving the natural history of Sweden, at the instance particularly of Professors Celsius and Rudbeck, deputed Linnæus to make the tour of Lapland, with the view of exploring the natural history of that arctic region; an undertaking to which his reputation, already high as a naturalist, and the strength of his constitution, equally recommended him. He left Upsala on the 13th of May, and took his route to Gevalia or Gevels, the principal town of Gestricta, forty-five miles distant from Upsala. Thence he travelled through Helsingland into Medelpad, where he made an excursion, and ascended a remarkable mountain on his way to Hudwickswald, the chief town of Helsingland. He then proceeded through Angermanland to Hernosand, a seaport on the Bothnian Gulf; seventy miles distant from Hudwickswald; and, as the spring was not sufficiently advanced, he took this opportunity of visiting, though at the hazard of his life, the remarkable caverns at the summit of Mount Skula.

When Linnæus arrived at Umcoa, in West Bothnia, about ninety-six miles from Hernosand, he quitted the public road, and took his course through the woods westward, in order first to traverse the southern parts of Lapland. Having now reached the country that was more particularly the object of his inquiries, being equally a stranger to the language and to the manners of the people, and without any associate, he committed himself to the unfailing hospitality of the inhabitants. In this excursion he reached the mountains towards Norway; and after encountering great hardships, returned into West Bothnia. He next visited Pithca and Luaca, upon the Gulf of Bothnia; from which latter place he again took a westerly route, proceeding up the river of that name, and visited the ruins of the temple of Jockmock in Luaca Lapland, or Lap Mark; he thence traversed what is called the Lapland Desert, destitute of all villages, cultivation, roads, or any conveniences, and inhabited only by a few straggling people, originally descended from the Finlanders, a people entirely distinct from the Laplanders. In this district he ascended a noted mountain called Wallovari, in speaking of which he has given us a pleasant relation of his finding a singular and beautiful new plant (Aridromeda tetragona) when travelling within the arctic circle, with the sun in his view at midnight, in search of a Lapland hut. Thence he crossed the Lapland Alps into Finnmark, and traversed the shores of the North Sea as far as Sallerö.

These journeys from Luaca and Pithca, on the Bothnian Gulf, to the north shore, he performed on foot, attended by two Laplanders, one his interpreter, and the other his guide. He tells us that the vigour and strength of these two men, both old, and sufficiently loaded with his baggage, excited his admiration, since they appeared quite unfatigued by their labour; whilst he himself, although young and robust, Linnaeus was frequently quite exhausted. In this journey he was wont to sleep under the boat with which they forded the rivers, as a defence against rain, and the gnats, which in the Lapland summer are not less teasing than in the torrid zone. In descending one of these rivers, he narrowly escaped perishing by the upsetting of the boat, and lost many of the natural productions which he had collected.

Linnaeus thus spent the greater part of the summer in examining this arctic region, and those mountains on which, four years afterwards, the French philosophers secured immortal fame to Sir Isaac Newton. At length, after having suffered incredible fatigues and hardships, in climbing precipices, passing rivers in miserable boats, suffering repeated vicissitudes of heat and cold, and not unfrequently hunger and thirst, he returned to Tornem in September. He did not take the same route from Tornem as when he set out for Lapland, having determined to visit and examine the country on the eastern side of the Botnian Gulf. His first stage, therefore, was to Ulca, in East Bothnia, and thence to Old and New Carlebay, 84 miles south from Ulca. He continued his route through Wasa, Christianstad, and Björneburg, to Abo, the only university in Finland. Winter was now setting in space; he therefore crossed the gulf by the island of Aland, and arrived at Upsala in November, after having performed, mostly on foot, a journey of ten degrees of latitude in extent, exclusive of those deviations which such a design rendered necessary.

In 1733 he visited and examined the several mines in Sweden, and made himself so well acquainted with mineralogy and the docimastic art, that he was sufficiently qualified to give lectures on these subjects upon his return to the university. The outlines of his system of mineralogy appeared in the early editions of the *Systema Naturae*; but he did not exemplify the whole until the year 1768.

In the year 1734 Linnaeus was sent by Baron Reuterholm, governor of Dalecarlia, with several other naturalists in that province, to investigate the physical productions of that part of the Swedish dominions; and it was in this journey that he first laid the plan of an excellent institution, which was afterwards executed, in a certain degree at least, by himself, with the assistance of many of his pupils, and the result published under the title of *Pan Suecicus*, in the second volume of the *Annates Academici*.

After the completion of this expedition, it appears that Linnaeus resided for a time at Falun, the principal town in Dalecarlia, where he tells us that he taught mineralogy and the docimastic art, and practised physic; and where he was very hospitably treated by Dr More, the physician of the place. It also appears that he contracted at this time an intimacy with one of that gentleman's daughters, whom he married about five years afterwards, upon his settling as a physician at Stockholm. In this journey he extended his travels quite across the Dalecarlian Alps into Norway; but we have no particular account of his discoveries in that kingdom. In 1735 Linnaeus travelled over many other parts of Sweden, some parts of Denmark and Germany, and fixed his residence in Holland, until his return to Stockholm about 1739. In 1735, the year in which he took the degree of doctor of physic, he published the first sketch of his *Systema Naturae* in the form of tables, in 12 pages folio.

In 1736 Linnaeus arrived in England, and visited Dr Dillenius, the learned professor at Oxford, whom he justly considered one of the first botanists in Europe. It is needless to say, that he visited Dr Martyn, Mr Rand, and Mr Miller, and that he was in a more singular manner indebted to the friendship of Dr Isaac Lawson. He also contracted an intimate friendship with Mr Peter Collinson, which was reciprocally increased by a multitude of good offices, and continued to the last without any diminution. Dr Boerhaave had furnished him with letters to Sir Hans Sloane; but these, it seems, did not procure him the reception which the warmth of his recommendation appeared to claim.

One of the most agreeable circumstances that happened to Linnaeus during his residence in Holland, arose from the patronage of Mr Clifford, in whose house he lived a considerable part of his time, being now as it were the child of fortune. *Exeit patria triginta sex nummis aureis dixer*, are his own words. With Mr Clifford, however, he enjoyed pleasures and advantages scarcely at that time to be met with elsewhere in the world; that of a garden excellently stored with the finest exotics, and a library furnished with almost every botanic author of note. How happy he found himself in this situation, those only who have felt the same kind of ardour can conceive. Whilst in Holland, Linnaeus was recommended by Boerhaave to fill the place, then vacant, of physician to the Dutch settlement at Surinam; but he declined it on account of his having been educated in so opposite a climate.

Amongst his friends at this period may be mentioned Dr John Burmann, professor of botany at Amsterdam, whose name and family are well known in the republic of letters, and to whom our author dedicated his *Bibliotheca Botanica*, having been greatly assisted in compiling that work by the free access he enjoyed to that gentleman's excellent library; John Frederick Gronovius, of Leyden, editor of Clayton's *Flora Virginica*, and who very early adopted Linnaeus's system; Baron Van Swieten, physician to the empress queen; Isaac Lawson, afterwards one of the physicians to the British army, who died much regretted, at Oosterbaan, in the year 1747; and from whom Linnaeus received singular and most obliging civilities; Kramer, well known for an excellent treatise on the docimastic art; Van Royen, botanic professor at Leyden; and Lieberkunz of Berlin, famous for his skill in microscopical instruments and experiments. To these may also be added the names of Albinius and Gaubius, and of others, were it requisite to show that our author's talents had very early rendered him conspicuous, and gained him the regard of all those who cultivated medical science; and to which, doubtless, the singular notice with which Boerhaave had honoured him did not a little contribute.

Early in 1738, after Linnaeus had left Mr Clifford, and probably when he resided with Van Royen, he had a long and dangerous attack of sickness; and upon his recovery went to Paris, where he was kindly entertained by the Jussius, at that time the first botanists in France. The opportunity this gave him of inspecting the *Herbaria* of Royen and Tournefort, and those of the above-named gentlemen, afforded him great satisfaction. He had intended to proceed from thence into Germany, to visit Ludwig and Haller, with whom he was in close correspondence; but he was not able to complete this part of his intended route, and was obliged to return without this gratification.

Our author did not fail to avail himself of the advantages which access to the several museums of this country afforded him, in every branch of natural history; and the number and importance of his publications, during his absence from his native country, sufficiently demonstrate that fund of knowledge which he must have imbibed before, and no less testify his extraordinary application. These were,—*Systema Naturae*, *Fundamenta Botanica*, *Bibliotheca Botanica*, and *Genera Plantarum*; the last of which is justly considered as the most valuable of all the works of this celebrated author. The immense application bestowed upon it the reader may easily conceive, when he is informed, that before the publication of the first edition, the author had examined the characters of 8000 flowers. His last work, published during his stay in Holland, was the *Classes Plantarum*, which is a copious illustration of the second part of the *Fundamenta*. About the latter end of 1738, or the beginning of 1739, Linnaeus settled as a physician at Stockholm, where he seems to have met with considerable opposition, and was oppressed by many difficulties; but all of these he at length overcame, and got into extensive practice; and, soon after his settlement, married the lady before mentioned. By the interest of Count Tessin, he obtained the rank of physician to the fleet, and a stipend from the citizens for lecturing on botany. And what at this time especially was highly favourable to the advancement of his character and fame, by giving him an opportunity of displaying his abilities, was the establishment of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, of which Linnaeus was constituted the first president, and to which the king granted several privileges, particularly that of free postage to all papers directed to the secretary. By the rules of the academy, the president held his place but three months. At the expiration of that term, Linnaeus made his Oratio de memorabilibus in Insectis, on the 3d of October 1739; in which he endeavours to excite an attention and inquiry into the knowledge of insects, by displaying the many singular phenomena that occur in contemplating the nature of those animals, and by pointing out, in a variety of instances, their usefulness to mankind in particular, and to the economy of nature in general.

During all this time, however, Linnaeus appears to have had his eye fixed upon the botanical and medical chair at Upsala, then occupied by Rudbeck, who was far advanced in life. Indeed, so intent was he on pursuing his favourite study, that he had determined, if he failed in procuring the professorship at Upsala, to accept the offer which had been made to him by Haller, of filling the botanic chair at Göttingen. However, in course of time, he obtained his wish. In 1741, upon the resignation of Roberg, he was constituted joint professor of physic, and physician to the king, with Rosen, who had been appointed in the preceding year on the death of Rudbeck. These two colleagues agreed to divide the medical departments between them; and their choice was confirmed by the university. Rosen took anatomy, physiology, pathology, and the therapeutic part; Linnaeus, natural history, botany, materia medica, dietetics, and the diagnosis morborum.

During the interval of his removal from Stockholm to Upsala, in consequence of this appointment, our professor was deputed by the states of the kingdom to make a tour to the islands of Oeland and Gothland, in the Baltic, attended by six of the pupils, commissioned to make such inquiries as might tend to improve agriculture and arts in the kingdom, to which the Swedish nation had for some time paid particular attention. The result of this journey was very successful, and having proved fully satisfactory to the states, was afterwards communicated to the public. On his return he entered upon the professorship, and on the 17th of October pronounced before the university his Oratio de Peregrinationum intra Patriam necessitate, in which he forcibly displays the usefulness of such excursions, by pointing out to the students that vast field of objects which their country held out to their cultivation, whether in geography, physics, mineralogy, botany, zoology, or economics, and by showing the benefit that must accrue to themselves and their country as rewards of their diligence. The animated spirit which pervades the whole of this composition renders it one of the most pleasing and instructive of all our author's productions.

Linnaeus was now fixed in the situation which was the best adapted to his character, his taste, and abilities; and which seems to have been the object of his ambition, and the centre of his hopes. Soon after his establishment, he laboured to get the academical garden, which had been founded in 1657, put upon a better footing, and very soon effected it, procuring also a house to be built for the residence of the professor. The whole had been in ruins ever since the fire in 1702; and at the time Linnaeus was appointed professor of botany, the garden did not contain above fifty plants that were exotic. His correspondence with the first botanists in Europe soon supplied him with great variety. He received Indian plants from Jussieu of Paris, and from Van Royen of Leyden; European plants from Haller and Ludwig; American plants from Mr Collinson, Mr Catesby, and others; and a variety of annuals from Dillenius: in short, how much the garden owed to his diligence and care in a few years, may be seen by the catalogue published under the title of Hortus Upsaliensis, exhibens Plantas Exoticas horto Upsaliensis Academia a se (Linnaeo) illatae, ab anno 1742 in annum 1748, additis differentiis Synonymis, Habitationibus, Hospitii, rariorique Descriptionibus, in gratiam Studiosae Juventutis, Holm., 1748, 8vo. By this catalogue it appears that the professor had introduced 1100 species, exclusively of all the Swedish plants and varieties, which, in ordinary gardens, amount not unfrequently to one-third of the whole number. The preface contains a curious history of the climate at Upsala, and the progress of the seasons throughout the whole year.

From the time that Linnaeus and Rosen were appointed professors at Upsala, the credit of that university, as a school of physic, increased. Numbers of students resorted thither from Germany; and in Sweden itself many young men were invited to the study of physic, who otherwise would have engaged in different pursuits.

Whilst Linnaeus was meditating one of his capital performances, long expected and greatly wished for, he was interrupted by a tedious and painful attack of the gout, which left him in a very weak and dispirited state; and, at this juncture, nothing seemed to contribute more to the restoration of his spirits than the seasonable acquisition of a collection of rare and undescribed plants.

The fame which our author had now acquired by his Systema Naturae, of which a sixth edition, much enlarged, had been published at Stockholm in 1748, in 8vo, with eight tables explanatory of the classes and orders, had brought, as it were, a conflux of everything rare and valuable in every branch of nature, from all parts of the globe, into Sweden. The King and Queen of Sweden had their separate collections of rarities, the former at Ulriksdahl, and the latter, very rich in exotic insects and shells, procured at a great expense, at the palace of Drottningholm, both of which our author was employed in arranging and describing. Besides these, the museum of the Royal Academy of Upsala had been augmented by a considerable donation from the king, whilst hereditary prince, in 1746, by another from Count Gyldenborg the year before, and by a third from M. Gurl, an opulent citizen of Stockholm.

From this time the professor appeared in a more elevated rank and situation in life. His reputation had already procured him honours from almost all the royal societies in Europe; and now his own sovereign favoured him with a mark of distinction and regard, by creating him a Knight of the Polar Star. With science, it was no longer laudatur et alget. His emoluments kept pace with his fame and honours; his practice in his profession became lucrative; and we find him soon after possessed of a country-house and gardens at Hammarby, about 5 miles from Upsala. He had, moreover, received one of the most flattering testimonials of the extent and magnitude of his fame that perhaps was ever shown to any literary character, the state of the nation which conferred it, and all its circumstances, being daily considered. This was an invitation to Madrid from the King of Spain, there to preside as a naturalist, with the offer of an annual pension for life of two thousand pistoles, letters of nobility, and the unrestricted exercise of his own religion. But after the most grateful acknowledgments of this singular honour, he respectfully answered, "that if he had any merits, they were due to his own country."

In 1755 the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm honoured our professor with one of the first premiums, agreeably to the will of Count Sparree, who had decreed two gold medals, of ten ducats value each, to be annually given by the Academy to the authors of such papers, in the preceding year's Stockholm Acts, as should be adjudged most useful in promoting agriculture in particular, and all branches of rural economy. This medal bore on one side the arms of the Count, with this motto, Superstes in scientiis amor Frederici Sparree. Linnæus obtained it in consequence of a paper De Plantis quae Alpium Succedaneum indigenae, magno rei oeconomice et Medice emolumento fieri possint; and the ultimate intention was to recommend these plants as adapted to culture in Lapland. This paper was inserted in the Stockholmia Acta for 1754, vol. xv.

Linnæus also obtained the praemium centum aureorum, proposed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg, for the best paper written to establish or disprove, by new arguments, the doctrine of the sexes of plants. It was an additional glory to Linnæus to have merited this premium from the St Petersburgh Academy, inasmuch as a professor of that society, a few years before, had, with more than common zeal, although with a futility like that of the other antagonists of our author, endeavoured to overturn the whole Linnæan system of botany, by attempting to show that the doctrine of the sexes of plants had no foundation in nature, and was unsupported by facts and experiments.

It appears that Linnæus, upon the whole, enjoyed a good constitution; but that he was sometimes severely afflicted with a hemicrania, and was not exempted from the gout. About the close of 1776 he was seized with an apoplexy, which left him paralytic; and at the beginning of the year 1777 he suffered another attack, which very much impaired his mental powers. But the disease supposed to have been the more immediate cause of his death, was an ulceration of the urinary bladder, of which, after a tedious indisposition, he died, on the 11th January 1778, in the seventy-first year of his age. His principal works, besides those already mentioned, are—The Iter Olandicum et Gothlandicum; Iter Scanicum; Flora Suecica; Fauna Suecica; Materia Medica; Philosophia Botanica; Genera Morborum; different papers in the Acta Upsaliensia, and the Amenitates Academicae. The last of his treaties was the Mantissa Altera, published in 1771; but before his death he had finished the greater part of the Mantissa Tertia, afterwards completed and published by his son.

To the lovers of science it will not appear strange that uncommon respect was shown to the memory of this great man. We are told, "that on his death a general mourning took place at Upsala, and that his funeral procession was attended by the whole university, as well professors as students, and the pall supported by sixteen doctors of physic, all of whom had been his pupils." The King of Sweden, after the death of Linnæus, ordered a medal to be struck, one side of which exhibits Linnæus's bust and name, and the other Cybele, in a dejected attitude, holding in her left hand a key, and surrounded with animals and growing plants, with the legend, Decam luctus angit amissi; and beneath, Post Obituum Upsalies, die x. Jan. MDCCLXXVIII. Regis jubente. The same generous monarch not only honoured the Royal Academy of Sciences with his presence when Linnæus's commemoration was held at Stockholm, but, as a still higher tribute, in his speech from the throne to the assembly of the states, he lamented Sweden's loss by his death.

Linnæus's stature was diminutive; his head was large, and its hinder part very high; his look was ardent, piercing, and apt to daunt the beholder; his ear was insensible to music; and his temper quick, but easily appeased. Nature had been eminently liberal in the endowment of his mind. He possessed a lively imagination, corrected by a strong judgment, a most retentive memory, unremitting industry, and the greatest perseverance in all his pursuits. This is evident from the continued vigour with which he prosecuted the design formed so early in life, of totally reforming and constructing anew the whole science of natural history. This fabric he raised to a degree of perfection unknown before; and had the uncommon felicity of living to see his own structure rise above all others, notwithstanding every discouragement. Neither has any writer more cautiously avoided the common error of building his own fame upon the ruin of another man's. He ever acknowledged the merits of each author's system; and no man appears to have been more sensible of the partial defects of his own. Those anomalies which had principally been the objects of criticism he well knew that every artificial arrangement must abound with; and having laid it down as a maxim, that every system must finally rest on its intrinsic merit, he willingly committed his own to the judgment of posterity. Perhaps there is no circumstance of Linnæus's life which shows him in a more dignified light than his conduct towards his opponents.

The great improvement in descriptive natural history for which we are indebted to Linnæus, is the systematic introduction of trivial or specific names to designate species. Before his time, the genus of a plant or an animal was given, but the species was defined generally by a short description of its peculiarities—a clumsy and difficult method when the species were numerous; but Linnæus added another name to the generic one, to designate each species—as Quercus Robur, for the common oak; Pinus Pinea, for pitch pine; Canis Lupus, for the wolf; Fringilla Domestica, for the common sparrow; Rana Temporaria, for the common frog; Salmo Solar, for the salmon.