Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/212

LIN 1734 asked the services of Linnæus and other naturalists in the investigation of the physical productions of that province. After completing the survey, Linnæus resided for some time at Fahlun. In 1738 he proceeded to Holland, and took the degree of M.D. at the university of Harderwyk on 23rd June. While in Holland he formed a friendship with Dr. John Burman, professor of botany at Amsterdam, to whom he afterwards dedicated his "Bibliotheca Botanica." Through the recommendation of Boerhaave he was appointed to take charge of the large and valuable collection of plants and books at Hartecamp belonging to Cliffort, a wealthy Dutch banker. He profited much by his residence with this gentleman, and published a description of his plants under the title of "Hortus Cliffortianus"—a fine work in folio, with plates. At the same time several of his other works were passing through the press, and his time was fully occupied. In 1736 Cliffort sent Linnæus on a visit to England, and put him in the way of acquiring information in natural history. This visit, however, does not appear to have been a very pleasant one, and Linnæus was much disappointed with what he saw. Dillenius the professor of botany at Oxford did not give him a cordial reception; and the gardens and collections were not in such a state as to afford the information which Linnæus expected. Among those whom he met in England may be mentioned Dr. Shaw, the traveller in the Levant, Dr. Martyn, Mr. Philip Miller, the gardener to the Society of Apothecaries, and Mr. Peter Collinson. Towards the end of 1738 Linnæus settled in Stockholm as a physician, and at the same time lectured on botany and mineralogy. His life from this time was one of increasing fame and prosperity. The improvements which he had introduced into many departments of natural history were recognized, and his new method of classification, founded on the stamens and pistils, was almost universally received. He was chosen to be botanist to the king, and was elected president of the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm. He was subsequently appointed professor of medicine and then of botany at Upsal, and he raised the character of that university as a school of science. The botanic garden was improved at the expense of the government, and numerous pupils resorted to the school from all quarters. He was a successful teacher, and inspired the students with a zeal for research. Many of them became eminent as botanists; and during their travels to distant parts of the world made valuable collections, which were transmitted to their teacher along with descriptions, many of which were published in the Amœnitates Academiciæ. In 1757 Linnæus was raised to the nobility, and assumed the title of Von Linné; and his means had so increased as to enable him to purchase an estate in the vicinity of Upsal He was elected a member of all the learned societies of Europe, and many honours were conferred upon him for his scientific researches.

About the year 1776 his health began to fail. He had an apoplectic attack, followed by palsy. This occurred in 1777, and impaired his mental faculties. This was succeeded by ulceration of the bladder, which appears to have been the immediate cause of his death. His loss was deeply deplored in Sweden, and was looked upon as a national calamity. His remains were deposited in a vault in the cathedral of Upsal. His obsequies were performed in the most respectful manner by the whole university, the pall being supported by sixteen doctors of physic, all of whom had been his pupils. There was a general mourning at Upsal; and the king of Sweden caused a medal to be struck expressive of the public loss, and alluded to the subject in a speech from the throne.

The Linnæan herbarium was afterwards purchased by Sir James Edward Smith for £1000, and it is now preserved in the rooms of the Linnæan Society in London. In summing up Linnæus' merits one of his biographers says—"Educated in the severe school of adversity, accustomed from his earliest youth to put a high value on verbal accuracy and logical precision, endowed with a powerful understanding, and capable of undergoing immense fatigue both of body and mind, Linnæus produced a most important revolution in botanical science. He improved the distinctions of genera and species, introduced a better nomenclature in the binomial method, and invented a new and comprehensive system founded on the stamens and pistils. His verbal accuracy, and the remarkable terseness of his technical language, reduced the crude matter that was stored up in the folios of his predecessors into a form which was accessible to all men. He separated with singular skill the important from the unimportant in these descriptions. He arranged their endless synonyms with a patience and a lucid order that was quite inimitable. By requiring all species to be capable of a rigorous definition not exceeding twelve words, he purified botany from the endless varieties of the gardeners and herbalists; and by applying the same strict principles to genera, and reducing every character to its differential terms, he got rid of the cumbrous descriptions of the old writers." It is said of Linnæus, that although no man of science ever exercised a greater sway, or had more enthusiastic admirers, yet his merit was not so much that of a discoverer, as of a judicious and strenuous reformer. The knowledge which he displayed, and the value and simplicity of the improvements which he proposed, secured the universal adoption of his suggestions, and crowned him with a success altogether unparalleled in the annals of science The works of Linnæus are very numerous—"Fundamenta Botanica;" "Bibliotheca Botanica;" "Hortus Cliffortianus;" "Flora Lapponica;" "Genera Plantarum;" "Classes Plantarum;" "Critica Botanica;" "Flora Suecica;" "Flora Zeylanica;" "Hortus Upsaliensis;" "Materia Medica;"' "Amœnitates Academicæ;" "Philosophia Botanica;" "Species Plantarum;" "Elementa Botanica;" "Systema Vegetabilium;" "Systema Naturæ;" "Dissertationes Academicæ," 1743-76.—J. H. B.  LINNÉ,, or LINNÆUS, , the son of the great Linnæus, also a botanist, was born at Fahlun in Sweden on the 20th of January, 1741, and died at Upsal in 1783. He was much inferior to his father in talents and acquirements; but he was by no means deficient in abilities. The very reputation of his father made the world expect much from the son, and hence he was put to a severe comparative ordeal. He was naturally of a retiring disposition, and his health was indifferent. He devoted attention to botany, and in 1763 he succeeded his father in the chair of botany at Upsal. He left no son, and the male line of Linnæus' family became extinct on his death. Among his published works are the following—"Account of the Rarer Plants of the Upsal Garden;" a "Botanical Dissertation on some new genera of Grasses;" a "Monograph of Lavandula;" "Methodus Muscorum Illustrata."—J. H. B.  * LINNELL,, a distinguished landscape painter, was born in London in June, 1792. He received lessons in design from Benjamin West, studied in the Royal Academy, and was a pupil of John Varley the water-colour painter. Whilst yet a youth of fourteen or fifteen he began to exhibit landscapes in water-colours at the exhibition in Spring Gardens, and in oil at the Royal Academy in 1807, and the British Institution in 1808. At the latter he obtained in 1809, for his picture, "Removing Timber—Autumn," the premium of fifty guineas awarded to the best landscape of the year. But his landscapes did not attract purchasers, and for many years he practised portraiture as the more profitable branch of the profession, sending however, like Gainsborough, both portraits and landscapes to the exhibitions. His portraits are mostly smaller than life, and include a large number of eminent literary men and artists. From about 1846 Mr. Linnell has confined himself almost exclusively to landscapes, and his pictures have steadily made their way in public favour—a favour unmistakably evidenced by the high prices obtained for them during the last few years at public sales. Mr. Linnell's are all English scenes, chiefly the heaths of Hampstead and Surrey, and the woodlands that skirt them; or some road or by-track in the New Forest. But they seldom profess to represent any particular spot, and probably are never the exact delineation of any single scene. They are rather "compositions," less conventional and ostentatiously systematic than those of his old master, Varley; but still compositions in which the painter has sought, by the selection of characteristic features, shown under a special condition of weather and season, to exhibit a poetic phase of some ordinary English scene. But Mr. Linnell has also grappled with more ambitious themes from scripture and the ancient poets. Of these the more remarkable are the "Eve of the Deluge," 1848; the "Return of Ulysses," 1849; "Christ and the Woman of Samaria," 1850; and the "Disobedient Prophet," 1854; but in all, whatever be the subject, the scenery is essentially English. His last exhibited picture, 1861, was entitled "Wheat." The nation possesses four pictures by Mr. Linnell, two in the Vernon and two in the Sheepshanks collection, but they are all of small size. Two of Mr. Linnell's sons, J. T. and W. Linnell are landscape painters, closely imitating their father's manner; a third is an engraver in mezzotint.—J. T—e. 