Armed with letters from Dr. Boerhaave and the Burgomaster, he took one stronghold of professional prejudice after another. Not without a siege. One of them refused flatly to surrender. That was Sir Hans Sloan, the great English naturalist, to whom Dr. Boerhaave wrote in a letter that is preserved in the British Museum: “Linnæus, who bears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of being seen by you. He who shall see you both together shall see two men whose like will scarce ever be found in the world.” And the doctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of Peter the Great. But the aged baronet had had his own way so long, and was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do with Linnæus. At Oxford the learned professor Dillenius received him with no better grace. “This,” he said aside to a friend, “is the young man who confounds all botany,” and he took him rather reluctantly into his garden. A plant that was new to him attracted Linnæus’ attention and he asked to what family it belonged. “That is more than you can tell me,” was the curt answer. “I can, if you will let me pluck a flower and examine it.” “Do, and be welcome,” said the professor, and his visitor after a brief glance at the flower told its species correctly. The professor stared. “Now,” said Linnæus, who had kept his eyes open, “what did you mean by the crosses you had put all through my book?” He had seen it lying on the professor’s table, all marked up. “They mark the errors you made,” declared the other. “Suppose we see about that,” said the younger man and, taking the book, led the way. They examined the flowers together, and when they returned to the study all the pride had gone out of the professor. He kept Linnæus with him a month, never letting him out of his sight and, when he left, implored him with tears to stay and share his professorship; the pay was enough for both. A letter that reached him from home on his return to Holland made him realize with a start that he had overstayed his leave. It was now in the fourth year since he had left Sweden. All the while he had written to his sweetheart in the care of a friend who proved false. He wanted her for himself and, when the three years had passed, told her that Carl would never come back. Dr. Moræus was of the same mind, and had not a real friend of the absent lover turned up in the nick of time Linnæus would probably have stayed a Dutchman to his death. Now, on the urgent message of his friend, he hastened home, found his Elisabeth holding out yet, married her and settled down in Stockholm to practise medicine.