The new-established academy of Stockholm owed partly its existence to the zeal of Linnæus, and found in him the most active promoter of its flourishing and refpe&table ftate. From the year 1739 ro 1750 he caufed twenty-five treatifes to be inferted in its annals, relative to feveral remarkable animals, plants, and other Swedish natural curiofities. He was alfo a most active co-operator in the royal fociety of Upfal, among all the learned corporate bodies, which firft admitted him a member, and made him its fecretary for feveral years. During the fame period he enriched its tranfactions with twelve thefes. In the fpring of 1746 he made a tour to West Gothland. He travelled more than 300 German leagues, and in the following year published the refult of his obfervations. In the fummer of 1749, he vifited Scania or Schonen, the most fouthern of the Swedish provinces. This was the fixth and laft tour which he made in his own country. Thus Linnæus became the father of a beautiful and most accurate natural statistic of his own country. Before he fet out on his two laft tours, he published a defcriptiou of the Swedish plants, with an index illuftrating their medical and economical properties, the place of their growth, and their Swedish and provincial denominations. This first edition contained a description of 1140 plants, and in the fecond, their number was augmented to 1296 -A twelve-month after the publication of this Flora, followed a defcription of the Swedith animals, birds, amphibia, fishes, infects and vermes; a work which he had already begun to collect, while a ftudent at Upfal in the year 1730. There had never appeared fo general and, complete a zoology of any country. The first edition contained 1350 articles. By his own difcoveries, and the observations of his pupils, this number was increased, in a second edition, fifteen years after, to 2266. This laft edition prefented the following state and proportion of the animal reign in Sweden: 1691 fpecies of infects, 198 of vermes, 195 of birds, 77 of fithes, 53 of mammalia and 25 of amphibia. His merits were now honoured and acknowledged, not only abroad, but also at home. In 1743 he was chofen member of the Academy of Sciences of Montpellier, where he kept up his friendly correfpondence with profeffor de Sauvages; seven years after he was elected member of the fociety of Thoulouse, and in 1747 member of the Royal Academy of Berlin. In the fame year he caused fimilar honours to be bestowed on feveral of his learned friends in Sweden: Haller, Juffieu, Sauvages, Gesner, Gmelin, Clayton, Collinfon, and Van Swieten were received members of the Royal Academy at Stockholm, an honour which had, for the first time been conferred upon foreigners. Linnæus received a testimony of ref pect in his own country, which had never yet been bestowed on any of his academical predeceffors. Four patriotic grandees, Count Ekeblad, Hoepken, Palmftierna and Baron Harleman, caufed a gold medal to be ftruck in honour of him. Linnæus was highly fond of the portraits of great and celebrated men, He had collected many of them in his travels abroad. In the apartments of of his house those of the most remarkable botanists were exhibited to view. In 1746 a print of Haller was published in copper plate. Linnæus requested a copy of this portrait of Haller himself, and fent him one of his gold medals in return. At the inf tance of Count Teffin, Linnæus obtained the title of Archiater, or Dean of the College of Phyficians, on the. 19th of January 1747. His father, who in his youth had defigned Linnæus for an apprentice to a fhoe-maker!—now faw his fon thus honoured by the great men of the kingdom, railed to dignities, his fame fpread all over Europe, and his name rendered immortal. The father of Linnæus died at Stenbrohult, May 12, 1748, aged 74. Long ago would his memory have perifhed but for his great fon, who was at firft the torment, but afterwards the delight and boast of his life. . His difciples became the priests and teachers of nature in all parts of the world; through him the love of her productions animated the great, and penetrated even to the throne of his country. Count Teffin, his elevated patron, loved him and his fcience, especially the knowledge of the mineral reign. He had collected a confiderable cabinet of minerals, the description and arrangement of which he left to the care of Linnæus. The defcription appeared in 1753 in Latin and Swedish, and to the honour of the author, Count Teffin himself prefixed a preface to the work, dedicated it to Linnæus, and caufed a copper-plate to be put in front of it, representing the medal which he had ordered to be ftruck in honour of our Juminary. Under Linnæus the first royal mufeums were established in Sweden. We have already mentioned the prefent which King Frederick Adolphus made to the academy of Upfal, while he was prince royal. The love of nature was one of the favourite paf fions of that prince. In a fhort time a great number of curiofities of the animal reign, efpecially foreign birds, amphibia, fishes, and infects were collected, and a cabinet built in the castle at Ulrichfdale, at the distance of half a league from Stockholm. Linnæus had the honour to arrange it, and to publish a defcription of its contents in the year 1754. She The laudable example of this prince was followed by his excellent and accomplished Queen Louifa Ulrica, fifter to Frederick the Great. had a cabinet of fhells, infects and corals collected at her own expence in her palace at Drottningholm, the flow increase of which rendered its treasures the more valuable. The oriental collections of the unfortunate Haffelquift were preserved in the fame place. Linnæus alfo defcribed this museum. The two royal palaces of Ulrichsdale and Drottningholm till contain to this day the monuments of his labours and arrangements. The late King Guftavus III. left thofe treafures of nature, which will ever shine as an ornament in those edifices, in the fame order as Linnæus had defcribed them according to his own fyftem. Linnæus chofe the academical recefs as the time for arranging the royal cabinets. There are two vacations every year at the University of Upfal, the fummer vacation lafts three months, and the winter vacation fix weeks. On thofe days of leifure, he used to go to Ulrichfdale and Drottningholm, fituate at the distance of about eight Swedish miles from Upfal. But a fell diforder threatened to prevent Linnæus from repairing thither, had not he fortunately difcovered an efficacious remedy against it. In the fummer of 1750, he was attacked with the gout. His fits were fo violent as to deprive him of fleep for feven days and feven nights, nor could he ever keep his feet quiet for an hour together. The gouty matter circulated ed to the compound creatures, or tox the animal plants; that each of its limbs had a mouth and an anus. In the fame year, he found out the art of making pearls. "I am at last "acquainted," fays he in the fame letter to Haller, "with the manner "in which pearls are generated in "their fhells. I can now bring it "about, that each pearl fhell, (the "Mya margaritifera, fo abundantly "found in the North fea,) which "can be encompaffed in one's band, "will, after a lapfe of between five circulated from one foot into the ether, and thus gradually spread its poifon to his hands and other limbs. Those who attended him began to despair of his recovery. All his appetite being gone, he one day took it into his head to refresh himfelf with strawberries; he ate them, fell asleep, defired more of that fruit to be given him, and two days after rofe from his bed entirely restored to health and vigor. In the courfe of the following fummer he was again troubled with a relapse. He came to the palace, with a pale and diftorted" and fix years, produce a pearl of Countenance. The Queen Dowager afked him if he wanted any thingA pottle of ftrawberries"-anf wered he. The ftrawberries were brought him ;-and the next day her Majefty faw him full of spirits and perfectly recovered in her museum of natural curiofities. Three years afterwards Linnæus had again feveral fits of the gout, but they were much weaker than formerly, and he always conquered their virulence with ftrawberries. He ate them every fummer; they purified his blood, rendered his complexion more florid, and banished the gout for ever from his frame. Exclufive of this new cure of the gout which cafual experience had taught him, his penetrating genius found the way to many other difcoveries. He firft obferved in the year 1748, that the worm Tania belong "the fize of a pea." He kept his fecret to himself for a long time. In the diet of 1762, it became a fubject of public difcuffion, and the states of Sweden induced him, by the offer of a confiderable reward, to communis cate it to one of their reprefentatives, a merchant and director of the Swedish Eaft India Company at Gothenburgh. It does not however appear that any confiderable benefit was ever derived from this discovery. Doctor J. E. Smith of London, the prefent proprietor of the Linnaean collections, is alfo in poffeffion of the manufcript which Linnæus wrote upon the generation of pearls. This curious work is written in the Swe difh language; and from its high va lue, it may probably never appear in public. To be continued. SINGULAR INCIDENTS, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, AND CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS, FROM THE YEAR 1403 TO THE YEAR 1503. FROM THE SECOND VOLUME OF ANDREWS' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. EL LIZABETH, a Jewish convert, the their own privileges as to menial ferdaughter of Rabbi Mofes, was vants, &c. with great fpirit, fhould, allowed two-pence per day as a con- with wondrous inconfiftence, petition fideration, in 1463, for being deferted the crown that it would direct the by her family on account of her change as to religion.-Rym. Fad. It feems fingular that, in 1404, the Commons, after having vindicated Lords to examine into a falfe return for Rutland, and punish the offenders. Rot. Subfid. In 1406, Richard Clithero, knight of of the fhire for Kent, being ordered In 1408, archbishop Arundel declared in a preface to his canons that The pope was vicegerent of heaven.' • Extraordinary language,' (fays Dr Henry) to be used juft at a time when the two exifting popes were configning each other to Satan, and were both declared by the council of Pifa contumacious heretics.' In the fame year, we find, to the credit of English fculptors, that Thomas Colyn, Thomas Holewell, and Thomas Poppe, carried over to Bretagne an alabafter monument (which, they had executed for duke John IV.) and erected it in the cathedral of Nantes. Rym. Fad. It was in or about 1410, that a lord Beachamp travelling through the east, was hofpitably received at Jerufalem by the Soldan's lieutenant; who, hearing that he was defcended from. the famous Guy earl of Warwick, whofe ftory they had read in books written in their own language, invite ed him to his palace; and royally feafting him, prefented him with three precious ftones of great value, beside divers cloths of filk and gold given to his fervants.'-Rous, apud Dugdale. In 1412, an act paffed giving the certificate of a justice of the peace, in' cafe of riots, the fame force as the prefentment. The firft inftance of extraordinary power granted to this. refpectable clafs of magiftrates.Barrington. About this period died Geoffrey Chaucer, whom we call the firft Eng. In 1413, Dr Fuller remarks that: lish poet. The rank of his parents is John Golope was the first person who not known. In 1359, he became affumed the title of an efquire; and page to Edward III, married Philippa that until the end of Henry the fixth's the fifter of Catherine Swynford (the reign fuch diftinctions were not used, future wife of John of Gaunt) and is except in law proceedings. Yet faid to have had a very large income. Ordericus Vitalis, as early as A. D... As, however, he took a warm part 1124, fpeaks of the earl of Mellent on the fide of the reformer Wickliff, who, endeavouring to efcape from he fuffered when the Lollards were the troops of Henry Beauclerc, and perfecuted; and in, or about 1382, being feized by a country man, bribed. he was obliged to retire to the conti- him to fet him free and to fhave him, nent, whence, venturing back to Eng-in the guife of an efquire,' inftar land to raise money, he was feized and armigeri,' by which means he eluded imprifoned. The end of his life how his pursuers. ever was spent in ease and plenty, at Donnington Cattle, Berks; where he compofed (as tradition fays) fome of his finest poems. John of Gaunt was, then in power. Chaucer, as we find in Rymer's Foedera, received a pitcher of wine every day from the cellars of Edward III. He had likewife from Richard II. a grant of a hogshead of wine every year, and this was continued by Henry IV. So well were Ed. Mag. 7. Jan. 1796. It appears from Rymer's Foedera, that Henry, in 1417, authorised John Morftede, to prefs as many furgeons as he thought neceffary for the French expedition, together with perfons to make their inftruments.' It is alfo true, and appears in the fame book of records, that with the army w which won the day at Agincourt, there had landed only one furgeon, the fame John Morfiede, who indeed, did enC gage gage to find fifteen more for the army, three of which, however, were to act as archers!!! With fuch a profeffional fcarcity, what must have been the ftate of the wounded on the day of battle? In the fame year, the king observing that Holbourn, Alta via regia in Holbourn,' was a deep and perilous road, ordered two fhips to be laden with stones at his own coft, each twenty tons in burden, in order to repair it. This feems the first paving in London.-Rym. Fad. 4 In 1418, iron balls were not used for cannon, fince we find an order for making at Maidstone in Kent, 7000 ftone bullets for the king's ordnance. --Ibid. In 1421, loud complaints having been made by the inferior clergy as to the inequality of their ftipends, it was ordained by the fuperior convocation, that each bishop's family-barber fhould fhave each priest who had his orders from that bishop, without pay ment.-Wilkens' Confilia. Cows, in 1425, were valued at about fixteen modern fhillings each.-Madox. Form. Angl. In 1426, the affembly which met in February was called the parliament of bats,' fince the fenators being ordered to wear no fwords, attended armed with clubs or bats. Their meeting too was held at Leicester, tó avoid the tumult of a London mob. In 1429, an important change was made as to the qualifications of voters for knights of thires. These were now obliged to prove themselves worth 40s. per annum. Before this, every freeholder might vote, and the vaft concourfe of elections brought on riots and murders. Twenty pounds would in modern days be barely an equivalent for our ancestors 40s. The freeholders were at the fame time directed to chufe two of the fittest and most discreet knights refident in their county. Or if none fuch could be found, notable efquires, gentle men by birth, and qualified to be made knights, but no yeoman, or perfon of inferior rank.' Henry from Statutes. In 1431, Holingshed relates a melancholy tale of an ungrateful Breton, who murdered his kind hoftefs near Aldgate. Falling however into the hands of the women in the neighbourhood, they fo bethwacked him with ftones, ftaves, kennel, doong and other things,' fays our chronicler, 'that they laid him aftretching, and rid him of life.' Nearly about this time flourished John Lydgate, The Monk of Bury.' He was avowedly a scholar and imitator of Chaucer, for whom he always expreffed a moft awful reverence. He spent his life in the profeffion of a tutor, travelled to France and Italy with improvement, and was much esteemed as a scholar and poet. If he had not the fire of Chaucer, he exceeded him in fmoothnefs of language. And the extreme humility of the following lines must speak in favour of the modeft poet. I am a monk, by my profeffion, Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name, |