"I fear I have angered you by saying, as you observe in your last, so much against your system of arrangement. Nevertheless, I could say a great deal more, and should be able to prove to you that you separate and tear asunder several genera nearly related to each other. But this is not my aim, as I value your friendship too much." In another letter, dated May 16, 1737, he writes as follows:--"I must say a word concerning stamens and styles, as being unfit to found a system of arrangement upon; not only because they vary as much as flowers and seed-vessels, but because they are hardly to be discerned, except by yourself, and such lynx-eyed people;[K] and in my judgment, every scheme of classification offers violence to nature. Notwithstanding all this, I applaud and congratulate you, in the highest degree, for having brought your premature birth to such perfection. You have accomplished great things, and, that you may go on and prosper still more, let me exhort you to examine more and more species. I do not doubt that you yourself will one day overthrow your own system. You see, my dearest Linnaeus, how plainly I speak my sentiments, depending on your candour to receive them favourably." One of the most respectable of his English correspondents was Peter Collinson, with whom he became acquainted when he visited London in 1736. He belonged to the Society of Friends, possessed a most amiable disposition, evinced the strictest probity and the purest benevolence, was blessed with a genuine and ardent love of nature, enjoyed a long life of active virtue, and died in the glorious hope of a happiness unappreciable. The gentle though rather romantic character of the quaker shines forth in all his letters, but in none more than in the last he wrote, which is as follows:-- "Ridgeway-house, on Mill-hill, ten miles north of London,-- March 16, 1767.