CHAPTER XXV.

Birth and Early Life of Buffon and Linnæus compared-Buffon's Work on Natural History-Daubenton wrote the Anatomical Part -Buffon's Books very interesting, but not always accurate-He first worked out the Distribution of Animals--Struggles of Linnæus with Poverty- Mr. Clifford befriends him-He becomes Professor at Upsala-He was the first to give Specific Names to Animals and Plants-Explanation of his Descriptions of Plants - Use of the Linnæan or Artificial System-Afterwards superseded by the Natural System-Linnæus first used accurate terms in describing Plants and Animals-Character of Linnæus-Sale of his Collection, and Chase by the Swedish Man-of-war.

Advance of Natural History-Buffon and Linnæus.-In the year 1707 two men were born, the one in France and the other in Sweden, whose names have become almost equally well-known, although they were by no means equally great.

The Frenchman, George-Louis Le Clerc Buffon, the son of a counsellor of the parliament of Dijon, was born on his father's estate in Burgundy. The Swede, Karl Linnæus, the grandson of a peasant and son of a poor Swedish clergyman, was born in a small village called Râshult, in the south of Sweden. Buffon enjoyed the best education which France could afford him, with plenty of opportunity to culti vate his love of natural history. At one-and-twenty he succeeded to a handsome property, and after travelling for some time settled down to a life of ease and literature, partly

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in Paris, and partly on his estate in Burgundy. Linnæus was taught in a small grammar-school, where he showed so little taste for books that his father would have apprenticed him to a shoemaker if a physician named Rothmann, who saw the boy's love of antural history, had not taken him into his own house and taught him botany and physiology. At one-and-twenty, when Buffon came into his fortune, the young Linnæus, with an allowance of eight pounds a year from his father, was a struggling student at the University of Upsala, putting folded paper into the soles of his old shoes to keep out the damp and cold.

Buffon's work on Natural History: he traces the Distribution of Animals.-Buffon's private life is not interesting. He was a vain man, and not a moral one; but he had great talents, and remarkable perseverance and industry. In 1739 he was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Garden and Cabinet at Paris, a position which he held till his death. His great work, of which we must now speak, was his 'Natural History,' which occupied him the greater part of his life. It is one comprehensive history of the living world, containing descriptions of all the animals then known, their structure, their distribution, their habits, and their instincts, and, mingled with these, many curious theories about the world and its inhabitants.

The anatomical part of this work was done by a physician named Daubenton, who came from Buffon's own village, and was appointed keeper of the cabinet of natural history through his influence. Buffon was very fortunate in having the help of this man, for having weak sight himself, and being more fond of general theories than of petty details, this part of his work would have been very poor if it had not been for Daubenton's careful and conscientious dis

sections and descriptions. The rest of the work was written chiefly by Buffon himself, who bestowed upon it immense pains and labour. He was a very pleasing writer, and did a great deal for natural history by making it popular. His books were more like romances than works of science, but he collected in them a great deal of very useful information, and put it in a shape which everyone could read with pleasure, and in this way led people to think, and to wish to know more about natural history and the habits and lives of animals. He was also the first to trace out with any care the way in which animals are distributed over different parts of the globe; how they are checked by climate, by mountains, by rivers, and by seas from wandering out of their own regions, and how they are more widely spread over cold countries than over warm ones, because they are able to cross the seas and rivers upon solid or floating ice, and so get from one region to another.

In this general way Buffon gathered together a great many interesting facts about animals. His works were all the more popular because he disliked anything like classification. He would not attempt to group the animals after any particular method, but liked to describe each one with a little history of its own, and to write on freely without any very great scientific accuracy. Of course the consequence was that he often made great mistakes, and arrived at false conclusions; still he had so much genius and knowledge that a great part of his work will always remain true, and . Natural History owes a great deal to Buffon. He died in 1788, in the eighty-first year of his age, and twenty thousand people assembled to do him honour at his funeral.

Life and Influence of Linnæus, 1707-1778.-We must now turn to Linnæus, whose whole life and labours were as

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EARLY LIFE OF LINNÆUS.

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different from those of Buffon as his birth and early life had been. Buffon hated to be bound down to exact details ; Linnæus found his greatest pleasure in tracing out each minute character in plants and animals so accurately as to be able to build up a complete classification, by which anyone could tell at once to what part of the animal or vegetable kingdom any living being belonged. While Buffon's books were entertaining and readable, Linnæus's were often hard dry science, consisting chiefly of long accurate tables and minute details about the structure of animals and plants. Yet Linnæus's writings are worth infinitely more than those of Buffon's for one simple reason, he had a more earnest love of truth.

Linnæus seems to have been born a botanist. He writes in his own diary that when he was four years old he went to a garden party with his father and heard the guests discussing the names and properties of plants; he listened carefully to all he heard, and 'from that time never ceased harassing his father about the name, quality, and nature of every plant he met with,' so that his father was sometimes quite put out of humour by the incessant questioning. However at last, when Dr. Rothmann took him into his house, he had opportunities of learning, and from that time he advanced so rapidly that he was soon beyond all his teachers.

In 1736, after meeting with many kind friends in his poverty, and making a journey to Lapland, which was paid for by the Stockholm Academy of Science, he went to Holland. Here he called on the celebrated Boerhaave, who with his usual good nature introduced him to a rich banker, named Clifford, who was also a great botanist. This was the turning-point of Linnæus's life. Mr. Clifford invited

him to live with him, treated him like a son, and allowed him to make free use of his magnificent horticulutral garden. He also sent him to England to procure rare plants, and gave him a liberal income. This continued for some time till Linnæus's health began to fail, and he found besides that he had learnt all he could in this place, so he resolved to leave his kind friend and wander farther. Mr. Clifford seems to have been much hurt at his leaving, yet he continued his kindness to him through life.

Linnæus went to Leyden and Paris, and from there to Stockholm, where he practised as a physician, and at last he settled down as Professor of Medicine and Natural History at Upsala, where he founded a splendid botanical garden, which served as a model for many such gardens in other countries, such as the Jardin de Trianon in France, and Kew Gardens in England. His struggles with poverty were now over for ever, and his fame as a botanist was spread all over the world. He used to set out in the summer days with more than 200 pupils to collect plants and insects in the surrounding country, and many celebrated people came to Stockholm to attend Linnæus's 'Excursions.' Then as his pupils spread over the world he employed them to collect specimens of plants and animals from distant countries, and he himself worked incessantly to classify them into one great system.

Linnæus gives Specific Names to Plants and Animals. -And now we must try to seize upon the chief points of Linnæus's work, that you may be able to understand something of what he did for science, although it is quite impossible for us to give even a sketch of his divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The first and greatest point of all was that he gave a second or specific name to every plant and animal. Before his time botanists had