19th of November, 1769, and 24th of January, 1770, therein copied, and alfo feparately preferved, together with a Latin tranflation (not completed) by my late father, and the genealogy of the family of Linné, made by the governor of the province, Baron Tilas, was dictated with all the ingenuous fimplicity of Linné, and in fome places interlined and corrected by himfelf. It is certainly the only life of him whol ly compofed by himself, and of course the most interefting and worthy to be published of all the other papers, among which are fifty-five letters to his moft intimate friend from youth, who was fortunate enough to have chiefly contributed, if not towards rewarding this great man, at least towards encouraging him. " The paffages in the letters, referred to in this memorandum, are copied in the fame handwriting (viz. that of M. Fredenheim) at the head of the Diary, and are to the following purport. "I have here drawn up my own panegyric, and found that propria laus fordet. I fhould never have shown it to any body in the world, if not to the only one of all my friends, who has been unalterably fuch, from times when I was in lefs advantageous circumstances. If you fhould be pleased to extract any thing from it, my dear friend, it would attract notice, when coming from fuch a pen as yours. I am quite afhamed to lay it before you, and fhould never have done fo, had I not been convinced of your friendship and uniform fincerity. —-- Upfala, Jan. 29. 1762. " (It would appear from this extract, that Linnæus bad fent his me moirs to the Archbishop in the year 1762; but, if we may judge from a paffage in another letter, quoted below, the Archbishop did not ac tually receive them until the 22d of January, 1770.) "My principal object in wishing to fee you at Stockholm, my dear friend, was to beg of you, who have shown the most fincere and conftant friendship for me, to take the trouble (when you are at leisure) of writing, in Latin, my infignificant memoirs, which ought to be delivered to the French Academy, as I am Ordinarius Extraneus Profeffor; and, fince age and attendant circumftances admonish me colligere farcinas, the fooner this is done the better.-Upfala, Oct. 30, 1769.” "I cannot mention my perfonal merits without fome preface; for propria laus fordet, and felf-love will here and there fhew itfelf. Upfala, Nov. 19. 1769." "The day before yesterday I fent, by a peafant, my Curriculum Vita, under cover to Archiater Bäck. If he fhould not have already tranfmitted it to you, you will recollect that Archiater Bäck lives oppofite the cannon-foundery yard, or the gate of it. "If, when you return home, you should have time, he fo good as -to think of me. It was written at various intervals, and, of course, with various degrees of attention. Pray alter the fhape of it in any way you pleafe, as it is intended only to ftate facts. This will be the laft fervice that can be rendered to me, who now fee people of my time of life dropping on all fides. Ego infelix facius refto. Jan. 24. 17.70." • Thefe : These paffages explain all the circumstances connected with Lin hæus's Diary, and cannot require any comment. The Archbishop's Latin tranflation extends no further than the year 1730, a period having been put to his undertaking by death. The English tranflation, published at the end of this volume, was made by Mr Troilius, a Swedish gentleman (now refiding in London), of the fame family with the late Archbishop von Troil, the well-known author of the Letters on Iceland. Both the ftyle and the arrangement of the original are adhered to as closely as poffible, and the Latin paffages are given verbatim, in order that there might be no further deviation from Linnæus's own expreffions than was abfolutely requifite. • Through the greater part of the Swedish manufcript, the handwriting is Dr Lindwall's, who was a pupil of Linnæus; but different hands are discoverable, and the materials appear to have been put toge ther with very different degrees of attention. The writing is in fome places difficult to be decyphered; in others the sense is obfcure; and there is often (as the reader will obferve) an abrupt tranfition, in the conftruction, from the third perfon to the first. ་ and The earlieft letter in the collection is dated "Upfala, 1734, bears the following superscription, viz. A Monfieur M. Charles Friedric Menander, Etudiant en Philofophie et Hiftoire Naturelle à Stockholm. The laft letter is dated" Upfala, Nov. 8. 1775. Upfala, Nov. 8. 1775." In this interval, Linnæus's correfpondent became Profeffor of Philofophy at Abo, after wards Bishop of that city, and laftly Archbishop, and Pro-Chancellor of the University of Upfala. He appears to have been a very warm and affectionate friend, and to have affifted Linnæus on various occafions effentially affecting his interefts.' Pref. p. x-xv. It would greatly exceed our limits to dwell minutely on this curious document. As a register of dates and occurrences, it may form the basis of fome future life of the author; but it abounds more in facts than in traits of genius or philofophical reflections; and, if we could fairly judge of the ftyle through the medium of a literal tranflation, we fhould not hesitate to pro nounce it fingularly clumfy and repulfive. The principal events in the author's life are firft marfhalled in chronological array, and are then more circumftantially related. He next recapitulates his lucubrations and difcoveries in medicine, botany, zoology, lithology, the characteristics of his perfon, the ftations and honours to which he was raised, the numerous learned focieties of which he was a member, the titles of his writings, the flattering testimonies of authors, and the names of his pupils. In every page, the writer is the unblufhing herald of his own praife, till at length he becomes quite difgufting, and convinces us of the melancholy truth, that his vanity at least kept pace with his fcience. His admirers may no doubt remind us, that he only records fimple truths; and, in moft inftances, only deduces from VOL. VIII. NO. 16. Ff them them fuch opinions as have been fanctioned by the fuffrage of the public. The ancients, it may likewife be faid, are au thorities for this fort of fincerity. All this may be very true; but we feel that Cicero and Linnæus would have appeared with greater dignity if they had boafted lefs of their own deferts; and with regard to the latter in particular, we cannot help remarking, that the purfuits of the naturalift, which daily and hourly teach us how little we really know, and the infignificance of individual exiftence in the fyftem of things, are eminently calculated to infpire us with humility. In juftice, however, to the celebrated Swede, it behoves us to remark, that he has not veiled the lefs brilliant parts of his fubject, and that he ftates the circumftances of his poverty, and his fufceptibility of irritation, with the fame plainnefs that he commemorates the moft flattering inftances of royal favour. Even his large head and carious teeth are duly entered on record; and we are not allowed to be ignorant, that he had an obliterated wart on the right cheek, and another on the right fide of the nofe. The occafional blending of Latin phrafeology, or of learned and profeffional allufions, imparts a motley and pedantic aspect to the whole production. The following particulars, however, are interesting. Carl Linnæus was brought into the world between the hours of 12 and in the night dividing the d and d of May 1707,-a delightful feafon of the year, in the Calendar of Flora, being between the months of frondefcence and florefcence. His parents received their firft born with joy, and devoted the greatest attention to impreffing on his mind the love of virtue, both in precept and example. The fame thing that is faid of a poet, " Nafcitur non fit," may be faid without impropriety of our botanift. From the very time that he first left his cradle, he almoft lived in his father's garden, which was planted with fome of the rarer fhrubs and flowers; and thus were kindled, before he was well out of his mother's arms, thofe fparks which fhone so vividly all his lifetime, and latterly burft into fuch a flame. But his bent was first decidedly difplayed on the following occafion. He was fearçely four years old when he accompanied his father to a feaft at Möklen, and in the evening, it being a very pleasant season of the year, the guests feated themselves on fome flowery turf, liftening to the paftor, who made various remarks on the names and properties of the plants, fhowing them the roots of the Succifa, Tormentilla, Orchides, &c. The child paid the most uninterrupted attention to all he faw and heard, and from that hour never ceafed haraffing his father with questions about the name, qualities, and nature of every plant he met with; indeed, he very often asked more than his father was able to answer; but, like other children, he ufed immediately to forget what he had learned, and efpecially especially the names of plants. Hence the father was fometimes put out of humour, and refused to anfwer him, unless he would promise to remember what was told him. Nor had this harfhness any bad effect, for he afterwards retained with ease whatever he heard. All the child's powers, both of mind and body, confpired to make him an excellent natural hiftorian ;-befides his retentiveness of memory, he had an aftonishing quicknefs of fight. p. 512. 513. When a ftudent at the university of Upfala, he informs us, that he was obliged to trust to chance for a meal; and, in the article of drefs, was driven to fuch shifts that he was obliged, when his shoes required mending, to patch them with folded paper instead of fending them to the cobler.' Of his Syftema Natura, he fays it is a work to which natural history has never had a fellow.'- In the year 1765, he worked at the 12th or laft edition of the Syftema Natura, and, the whole of the autumn, on the Clavis Medicina, which would have employed the moft learned men for an age. GENERA MORBORUM have, not been fo clearly defined by any one; there is not a fingle word in them that is not ufeful; his work on this fubject is an excellent compend for a tyro." Are our masters of the healing art fufficiently grateful to Carl Von Linné for the following luminous improvements and difcoveries? • PATHOLOGY, the foundation of the whole medical art, and of all medical theory, has been more improved by Linnæus, in his Clavis Medicine of eight pages (which is a mafterpiece in its way, and one of the greatest treasures in medicine), than by a hundred authors and books in folio. The mechanical phyficians indeed had fhown, that the action of the Sapida confifts in relaxing or conftringing, according to the nature of their taste; but neither the species faporis, nor their contraries, were explained, much less the nature of the Olida. Linné was the first who faw that nature is balanced by contraries, and acted upon numero quinario. He faw that the Creator had given to animals two fenfes, viz. taste and smell. That the Sapida act only on the fluids and folids, or on the fibres. He found that Vitia Corporea, as well in the fluids as the folids, are only five in number. That the Vitia Encephali, vel Syftematis Nervofi, are likewife five, each with the fame number of contraries. • He likewife found that the Sapida and Odora are alfo five, with as many contraries; and that the right indication refults from a comparifon of contraries with contraries. He proved this by examples. What can be ftronger?' This quinteffence of recondite knowledge is too ftrong, we are afraid, for the understanding of ordinary mortals; but the Lord was with our knight of the polar ftar whitherfoever he walked,' Ff2 and and not only preferved him from fire, but led him with his own Almighty hand,' and permitted him to vifit his fecret council-chambers.' After this, we cannot wonder to find this illuftrious perfon teftifying of himself, that no perfon ever had a more folid knowledge of the three kingdoms of nature; fo completely reformed a whole science, and created therein a new æra; became fo celebrated all over the world; or fowed in any academical garden fo many feeds!' ART. XV. An Account of a Journey in Africa, made in the Years 1801 & 1802, to the Refidence of the Boofbuana Nation, being the remoteft Point in the Interior of Southern Africa, to which Europeans have hitherto penetrated. The Facts and Defcriptions taken from a Manufcript Journal; with a Chart of the Route. From Voyage to Cochin-China. By John Barrow Efq. F. R.S. London. Cadell. 1806. IN reviewing Mr Barrow's fecond volume upon Africa, in our eighth Number, we met with an allufion to the expedition of Meffrs Trutter & Somerville; and, from the fpecimen given of their journal, we were inclined to think that the public fuftained a confiderable injury by its being withheld from the prefs. Mr Barrow, into whofe hands the papers of those travellers were delivered, has very laudably fupplied this defect; and, though he has not publifhed the journals entire, he has given fo full an account of their contents, as leaves us no room for defiring to fee any more of them. This abftract he inferts (one does not exactly fee why) in a large volume lately published by him, on the fubject of Cochin-China, which we reserve for a future article. As a fupplement to the difcoveries in Africa, which we have had occafion to notice fince the commencement of our labours, we fhall here give our readers fome account of this tract. It furnishes but few occafions for difcuffion or remark; but fome of the facts which it contains, and fome inferences to which thefe give rife, are deferving of our beft at tention. This journey was undertaken by Mr Trutter, a member of the Cape judicature, and Mr Somerville, the garrifon-furgeon, by the orders of the Governor, in order to discover whether any of the Hottentot tribes in the interior had a fufficient ftock of cattle to furnish a fupply to the colony, rendered neceffary in confequence of the fickness and drought of the preceding feafon. They were accompanied by a draughtsman, fecretary, and feveral Dutch boors, |